'The Life of Chuck' Review: Mike Flanagan Tries Something New With This Stephen King Adaptation
It'll be interesting to how Flanagan's horror fans take to this sentimental exploration of mortality
The Life of Chuck is an incredibly timely movie, and that’s not because it deals with something specific to our current world circumstances (though it certainly does). It’s more about the feelings it evokes, from the collective fear that everything’s not going to be okay to the existential dread of realizing our time is far more limited than we’d like. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about death, even before everything went to hell, Flanagan gets me, as did Life of Chuck.
The film is certainly a gamble for Flanagan. It’s not a horror feature nor does it have the deep family dynamics of his TV work. It’s an incredibly sentimental and earnest film about life and the nature of living that can, at time, be a tad overwrought. But it is that feeling of understanding, that what unifies us is often what terrifies us and how we choose to put that aside to make ourselves happy and, in the process, connect with others. The Life of Chuck was certainly a movie I needed right now, if only to leave me saying, “See, someone else gets it.”
Based on a series of short stories by Stephen King, The Life of Chuck is a movie that, due to its structural nature, is hard to discuss without admitting some large plot points. Told in three parts, the film follows Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), a mild-mannered man who, in the process of living his life, is able to craft a universe of of people whose lives he’s touched.
The film starts at its conclusion, “Act Three - Thanks, Chuck.” The world is in disarray with extreme weather events, a 9.0 earthquake that is causing parts of California to strip away “like wallpaper.” Schoolteacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurse Felicia (Karen Gillan) are emotionally and physically petrified. The only one that seems to be happy is the employer of Charles Krantz, who has randomly put up billboards and bought TV ads to thank him for “35 great years.”
This section is Life of Chuck’s strongest section if only because of how relevant it feels. Marty and Felicia are pushed to their limits while everyone else is either apathetic or in “fuck it” mode. The script doesn’t go for a puzzle box, merely plopping its characters, and the audience into this world on the brink of extinction. There’s nothing to explain or rationalize, it just is. The main question is Chuck and why is his retirement being celebrated, but honestly the strength of this section is just allowing us to live in this frightening landscape. Flanagan is a master of letting things settle, and extended moments of Marty trying to watch 1944’s Cover Girl, or a young girl making the decision to rollerskate at night, ends up providing comfort because its emphasizing how we make autonomous decisions to try to find meaning in chaos.
It could be said Life of Chuck is a vibes movie and that’s certainly true as the overarching feeling of the movie evokes some of King’s best adaptations like Stand By Me. At times, this doesn’t feel like a Flanagan picture but something Rob Reiner would have directed in the ‘80s (and that’s not a bad thing). That sense of nostalgia mixed with the bittersweet of time having come and gone is what works for the film.
The other two sections, “Buskers Forever” and “I Contain Multitudes,” provide the necessary answers to where we started, but they present a vastly different tone as well. We meet Charles Krantz at various moments in his life. As an adult, Hiddleston is personable as Chuck though the character remains very much a cypher, no doubt because Chuck is meant to be an Everyman. Hiddleston’s wide smile and friendliness don’t give us much depth but that’s not the point. “Buskers Forever” is the film’s most sentimental, with an extended, expertly choreographed dance sequence.
But it’s in “I Contain Multitudes” that Flanagan and King dovetail most skillfully. We follow Chuck as a child (played by Benjamin Pajak) as he grows up living with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) after the death of his parents. Like any good King plot there’s mystery about what resides in the locked upstairs cupola in his grandparent’s house, and the reveal ends up tying the entire movie together.
Because The Life of a Chuck is about one’s ability to create community throughout their lives it’s not surprising that Flanagan brings back so many of the performers who have populated his own universe of films. Gillan and Ejiofer’s quiet conversations beautifully convey the sense of fear and desire for connection people feel in tough times. And Hamill ends up stealing the third act as Chuck’s curmudgeonly grandfather, Albie.
What I keep returning to, though, within The Life of Chuck is what is omnipresent in all of Flanagan’s features: the questions we have about death. Not necessarily what comes after, but the sense of what one experiences leading up to it and our chronic ability to plan for what we know is inevitable. “I Contain Multitudes” dives into this without getting too philosophical through the nature of the cupola. Though the movie is about one’s need to live a full life in the face of death it isn’t afraid to say that we desperately try to plan for how we’ll react when we’re faced with it and that, in the end, there’s nothing we can do. No one is going to prevent it and all we can do is go in with our eyes open.
It’s unknown how those who have celebrated the director for his horror output will take to Life of Chuck. But what has stuck in my memory since seeing it is Flanagan’s ability to bond with an audience. For a movie where everyone is seeking comfort, Flanagan does that for his audience. The Life of Chuck isn’t a movie with answers, but it’s a movie with compassion and understanding, which we can definitely use.
The Life of Chuck hits theaters June 6.