Stephen King adaptations are showing no signs of slowing down as The Life of Chuck finally hits the big screen after its premiere in Toronto back in September 2024. The fourth (possibly fifth) King-based work of the year, Mike Flanagan’s latest is also one of his more reflective works, and a step away from the more traditional horror both men are typically associated with. Told in three acts in reverse chronological order, The Life of Chuck tackles that one longstanding question central to so much of art – how to live life deliberately. But while it does a good job of celebrating the highs and lows of existence, it is also a tad too saccharine to be truly meaningful, and ends up fading into that forgettable category of cinema for those that didn’t say anything new.
In Act Three (the first), Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan play Marty and Felicia, estranged exes brought together by what can only be described as the end of the world. The entirety of California has disappeared into the sea, blazes sweep Europe, the internet stops working, sinkholes open up in the middle of a traffic jam and swallow up commuters (Matthew Lillard has a short but excellent scene in which he gradually breaks down, Marty rendered helpless next to him). Marty and Felicia however are more perplexed by billboards and signs that have been popping up around town, all marked “39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!” – a photograph of Chuck Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), supposedly esteemed accountant, beams out at them from behind his desk. While amusing at first, the early stages of the film certainly rely on Flanagan’s ability to spin horror from the mundane – it is only in Act Two and One that The Life of Chuck takes an aggressive turn. Arguably, it took some explaining for me to understand the reveal, but this stems no doubt from the fact that, at the risk of divulging too much, Marty and Felicia inevitably felt like the wrong people to be a part of Act Three. It is confounding that other characters who are more present elsewhere were not selected to recount the final moments of the world.
Of course, when the world is not ending, The Life of Chuck is full of, well, life – Tom Hiddleston and Annalise Basso give a rambunctious impromptu dance in the middle of a plaza that feels like a movie set, jiving to the infectious beat of The Pocket Queen’s drums. While not “the best dance scene ever committed to the screen” as Mark Hamill declared during the Picturehouse Central Q&A (Hot Honey Rag and Moses Supposes exist still), it is nonetheless one of the most joyous sequences on film this year, a real celebration of the art of movement and the power of community. Meanwhile, Broadway star Benjamin Pajak smashes his feature film debut, full of life and curiosity, yet vulnerable to the eyes of the public – like Gabriel LaBelle in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, his cheeky determination is one to watch. The Life of Chuck’s force lies in its ability to transcend genre, hopping in an inapparent manner seamlessly from dystopia to musical to 80s coming-of-age. Yet, all three have one and the same common theme at their heart – what is stopping us from accessing our full potential, from picking up that hobby, from laying out our differences, from kissing the girl? In this way, it showcases a broad range of instances in which life becomes truly beautiful if only we work at it. The result is a film of endless possibilities simply because the characters recognise that life is endless possibilities.
