Certificate: TBC

Running Time: 110 mins

UK Distributor: TBC

UK Release Date: TBC

REVIEWED AT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024

WHO’S IN THE LIFE OF CHUCK?

Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, Cody Flanagan, Taylor Gordon, Mia Sara, Trinity Bliss, Matthew Lillard, Q’orianka Kilcher, Antonio Raul Corbo, Harvey Guillén, David Dastmalchian, Kate Siegel, Carl Lumbly, Annalise Basso, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Matt Biedel, Sauriyan Sapkota, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Michael Trucco, Violet McGraw, Molly C. Quinn, Heather Langenkamp, Nick Offerman

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Mike Flanagan (director, writer, producer, editor), Trevor Macy (producer), The Newton Brothers (composers), Eben Bolter (cinematographer)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A trio of chapters in the life of ordinary accountant Charles Krantz (Hiddleston)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE LIFE OF CHUCK?

As revered as Stephen King is within the world of horror, it’s easy to forget that the writer isn’t just confined to one genre. For every Salem’s Lot or The Shining or Pet Sematary, there’s at least a dozen lesser-known gems among his work that flirt with various other types of stories, from prison dramas like The Green Mile to heartfelt coming-of-age sagas such as The Body (later adapted as Stand By Me). But every once in a while, King will write something that blends several genres together in such a short space that the end results are both fascinating and categorically undefinable, something that describes The Life of Chuck – as adapted for the screen by filmmaker Mike Flanagan – in an all too perfect nutshell.

King’s short story, found within the author’s recent anthology If It Bleeds, combines some most unexpected components, among them a heartfelt coming-of-age story, an apocalyptic drama, and even an uproarious dance flick, into a surprisingly touching and touchingly surprising narrative told in reverse order. Flanagan, with his equally uplifting adaptation, replicates the unusual mishmash into a film that will put the viewer not necessarily in a good mood, but in a state that may just have them with a new outlook on life itself.

As in the novella, The Life of Chuck is split into three chapters, beginning with the third. In it, we find the world as we know it pretty much on the verge of collapse: the internet is permanently down, sinkholes and other natural disasters are wiping out entire cities, and even the stars appear to be blowing out in the night sky. The one constant, however, is a mysterious advert featuring a man named Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) thanking him for 39 years of undefined work, a piece of marketing that soon starts popping up everywhere from billboards to subliminal TV commercials to somehow being projected into everyone’s windows.

Why it is that Charles, or “Chuck” as he’s better known, is suddenly everywhere (“our last meme,” as one character puts it), and what he’s done for nearly forty years to justify such favourable promotion, isn’t really the mystery that neither Flanagan nor King wants you to focus on for the film’s remaining two chapters. To a point, it isn’t even about who Chuck actually is, as he’s revealed fairly quickly to be nothing more than a regular accountant living a rather ordinary life. Instead, The Life of Chuck ends up being exactly that: a look at a person’s life, no matter how ordinary, and how rapturously they’re living nearly every single moment of it.

The film spends the majority of its three reverse-chronological chapters showing some of the most consequential moments in Chuck’s existence – as handily narrated by Nick Offerman – that give previously-shown chapters a completely new subtext than what we were originally presented. What starts out as a bleak end-of-the-world scenario with possible hints of cult worship, something that wouldn’t be too far removed from King’s more terrifying other stories, slowly turns into something far more grounded and deeply human, to where you’re on the verge of tears for entirely different reasons. Flanagan, operating on a much brighter note here than much of his previous work (including his own past King adaptations Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep), gently eases from one genre to another with unexpected but welcome humour, which sees characters comically lamenting the loss of Pornhub during the global internet outage, and warm-hearted dialogues filled with wisdom, some of them provided by Mark Hamill in an impressive turn as someone very close to Chuck at one point in his titular life.

Often, the filmmaker finds himself dabbling in genres that he’s not yet had the opportunity to explore in his career. At one point, everything practically pauses to deliver a show-stopping dance number that’s straight out of an old Gene Kelly picture, and with all the charm and charisma of one to boot. In an instant, Flanagan is taken outside the realm of horror that he’s been boxed within (a genre that he, like King, does very well, but like all great artists shouldn’t be the one thing he’s ultimately known for) and given the freedom to show what he’s capable of when it comes to less obvious types of film, expanding his filmic vocabulary in ways that should put him in consideration for other non-horror projects. Seriously, from the way he orchestrates this central dance sequence, a Mike Flanagan musical would honestly be a killer prospect.

It’s an uplifting, heartfelt, and neatly human story told on the screen with as much warmth and compassion as King originally did on the page. Inevitably, though, some will find The Life of Chuck to be somewhat uneventful, especially after teasing much bigger stakes in that opening (in reality, ending) chapter, and as a result they’ll struggle to find a purpose in its existence. Those people, however, would miss the entire point of the story, which is that life, as it is for Chuck, doesn’t necessarily have to be packed with endless drama in order to be interesting. People have the utmost freedom to do whatever it is they love, or used to love, and as long as it makes them happy and doesn’t harm others, then that’s all that matters.

The Life of Chuck, for as uneventful as it may seem, captures that in far deeper ways than anyone might expect.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Life of Chuck is a life-affirming adaptation of Stephen King’s short story by filmmaker Mike Flanagan, who gently transcends genres to deliver a heartfelt account of a very normal but no less gripping life, which may seem uneventful to some but nonetheless manages to stir all sorts of emotions with pleasing results.

It’s too early for cinema showtimes, but stay tuned!