The Life of Chuck tells the three-part story of one man’s life and the memories he left with the people in his life. Based on a Stephen King novella, the Mike Flanagan film aims to make joy in a cynical world. Does it succeed?
The Life of Chuck
Mike Flanagan (director and writer), Eben Bolter (cinematography), Mike Flanagan (editor)
Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Carl Lumbly, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Mark Hamill (cast)
September 6, 2024 (TIFF)
Content advisory: mentions of suicide
The Life of Chuck starts at the end and is pure suspense. The world is ending as schoolteacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tries to speak to parents about their children’s grades and absenteeism. His ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan), a nurse, is inundated with more suicidal patients than she or her fellow nurse (Rahul Kohli in an unnamed role) can handle. But amidst the world-ending events and fear, one message appears loud and clear: “Charles Krantz, 39 great years. Thanks, Chuck.” But who is Chuck?
I attended the world premiere of The Life of Chuck at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Before the film began, writer-director Mike Flanagan addressed the audience, telling us that he read the Stephen King novella at the start of the pandemic when all hope seemed lost. The book seared itself into his heart, and he realized that it was the little moments in our lives that matter more than anything else. That is what the film sets out to do. While it does succeed in some aspects, the film tries to do too much and ends up leaving the audience with too many unanswered questions.
The Life of Chuck is structured very differently than one would expect: Act Three, ‘Thanks Chuck,’ opens the movie with the world ending. Act Two, ‘Buskers Forever,’ and Act One, ‘I Contain Multitudes,’ chart Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) life as an accountant, his love of dancing, his tragic early losses, his upbringing by his grandparents, and the secret of the attic of his grandparents’ home. Playing around with the format of films can create a more immersive experience, and The Life of Chuck does this effectively. For quite a large part of the film, the audience is eagerly awaiting answers that keeps one watching.
Having watched a fair amount of Flanagan’s work by now, I did notice some of his directorial ticks creeping in, even when he was obviously trying not to. At Fan Expo Canada 2024, Flanagan had said that he would not be including long oners in this film. I wish he had done this in The Life of Chuck because what he chooses to do instead was even more distracting. The film has extremely long scenes of conversations between two characters within one setting or between two locations, as well as with close-ups edited in. It still ends up as one scene and one very long conversation, but now without the awe-striking stylization of a one-take shot.
What I did enjoy were Flanagan’s use of motifs and recurring characters, as well as how dialogue was reused in different sections to build the world of the film. But I’m also confused as to why some characters recurred and others didn’t. The logic of the film contradicted itself at times, and I’m not sure whether a rewatch will help explain those.
The Life of Chuck is joyful to watch at times. There is so much joy to be had in the many sequences of Chuck indulging in dance, both as a child and an adult. I love watching people dancing, so this film pressed those happy buttons in me. But it’s not that this film posits that happiness can only be found in dance—it also shares the happiness of space, time, and mathematics. The takeaway is that anything that gives you a little moment of joy in the vast quagmire of horror that we call life on Earth is worth celebrating.
But as much as I love watching Tom Hiddleston dancing, the opening tone of the film was so gripping, the fear and hope that Ejiofor and Gillan brought out through their performances was so compelling, that the rest of the film left me wanting. Especially since the longest act, and the largest portion of the film is an extremely Stand By Me-like story. The supernatural mystery in this section is dragged on for too long, but a discerning viewer would have figured it out from the information available. While I understand that this film isn’t about the mystery, that’s merely the hook, the rest of the story felt a bit dull when the start of the film was so grand and tense. I didn’t enjoy travelling from catastrophic global disasters to one boy’s burgeoning love of dance. As gripping as Act Three was, one thing did irk me. One of the characters says climate change isn’t man-made. It was a throwaway line and didn’t matter to the plot in the larger scheme of things, but you shouldn’t just include such a sentiment in a film when climate change disinformation is so widespread.
There’s another moment in The Life of Chuck that felt really odd. Young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) joins a dance class at his school in Act One. He’s the best dancer there, but he further impresses his classmates and teacher by showing them the moonwalk. I don’t know how this scene plays out in the novella because I haven’t read it, but in the film, it appears that Chuck has invented the moonwalk, which is a bizarre choice optically. The moonwalk, known first as the backslide, was created by Shalamar’s Jeffrey Daniel before he taught it to Michael Jackson, at which point it was renamed the moonwalk. The sight of a young white boy teaching it to his classmates, some of whom are Black, was jarring. Adding to the irony of the situation, one of the co-sponsors of the TIFF special presentations is TikTok, a platform where dances invented by Black artists are co-opted and credited to white artists. My eyes are going to roll right out of my head.
Hours after watching The Life of Chuck, these are the moments that have stayed with me. Cinema is what I turn to often to escape the cynicism of the world but I was left scratching my head at what about this film is life-affirming, as Stephen King himself stated online. A young boy learns the beauty of dance–we’ve seen this film before, it was called Billy Elliot.
While the plot didn’t land for me, the performances were stellar. Tom Hiddleston is the draw for this film, but he only has one set-piece: the long dance sequence in Act Two. And he is a joy to watch. Over a month of rehearsals, Hiddleston, Annalise Basso, his dancing partner in the scene, the percussionist Pocket Queen, who appears in the film and created the music for the scene, and choreographer Mandy Moore (not the singer) finessed the choreography which was then shot over four days. The final result is incredibly joyful–the freedom with which Hiddleston and Basso dance, the way The Pocket Queen feels the power of her music, it’s all evident right there on the screen. I admit, I smiled widely through it all. And then I wished Hiddleston had had more to do. But alas.
Ejiofor is so natural and relatable as a man who is out of his depth as the world ends, that I immediately felt connected to his Marty. Gillan captures the pathos of a thankless job surrounded by death that she feels obligated to keep doing because there aren’t many remaining to do that job. Child actors are often hit or miss but Pajak was a revelation. He owned the screen and kept pace with the adults in the room. Had it not been for Pajak’s natural acting, the final act would have brought the whole film down.
People who know Hamill only as Luke Skywalker will be surprised to see him as a grumpy grandpa (Albie Krantz, Chuck’s grandfather) in The Life of Chuck. Having seen Hamill in other roles, I wasn’t sure what we’d get here, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hamill’s Albie is a lovable grandpa who’s also deeply depressed because of the losses in his life. He wants the best for Chuck, but he’s also witnessed life in a way nobody else can understand and that colours how Albie navigates the world. Hamill brings all that to the screen in a few short scenes. Honestly, I’d have loved a film about Albie’s life.
Essentially, the story that The Life of Chuck wants to tell its audience isn’t the story that resonates. Yes, people are still singing and dancing and being artists, but the world we’re living in right now looks far too close to the story of Act Three–COVID-19 is still around and climate change is killing Black and Brown people disproportionately. I would love to be able to escape into Act One’s story with young Chuck loving dance, but it’s not a compelling enough story for me to escape into. The Life of Chuck will feel like escapism for many. Considering the standing ovation and tears it received from the packed TIFF audience, not to mention being voted the TIFF 2024 People’s Choice Award Winner, it made an impact on viewers. But for me, this was a film I could watch for great performances, lovely dancing, and a reminder that escapism is allowed to only a few.
