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"Jamie Marks Is Dead"

U.S. Dramatic

** (two stars)

Dead teens meet live teens in the metaphor-heavy but dramatically inert supernatural tale "Jamie Marks Is Dead." Jamie (Noah Silver) is a bullied, bespectacled high-schooler whose death shocks a small town. His death has a profound effect on one classmate, Adam (Cameron Monaghan), who visits the spot where Jamie's body was found and meets Gracie (Morgan Saylor), the classmate who found the body. Soon, Adam starts seeing Jamie, first outside his house and then in his closet (see, there's a metaphor now). Writer-director Carter Smith sets a brooding, chilly atmosphere, but he also writes opaquely vague dialogue and includes in a subplot involving Adam's mother (Liv Tyler) that goes nowhere.

— Sean P. Means

"Jamie Marks Is Dead" screens again at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival: Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Tower Theatre, Salt Lake City; Friday at 12:15 p.m. at the Eccles Theatre, Park City; and Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Temple Theatre, Park City.