It’s no secret that Hollywood’s batting average in adapting Stephen King stories for the big and small screen has been very hit or miss. It’s been half a century of King films, and the see-saw has dipped down and lifted again like a frenetic yoyo — from Brian De Palma’s bar-setting Carrie in 1976 to the diminishing returns of the now 11 Children of the Corn movies. Based on the story of the same name from Stephen King’s 2020 novella If It Bleeds, Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck doesn’t run into any cursed adaptation headwinds whatsoever.
Flanagan’s already familiar with King’s style; his last two features were 2017’s Gerald’s Game and 2019’s Doctor Sleep – stories where Flanagan honors the source material’s spirit while still putting his signature on them. In between his many Netflix series (Midnight Mass, The Fall of the House of Usher), Flanagan has created a triptych of very emotional Stephen King adaptations, with The Life of Chuck being the best yet.
Flanagan uses an unorthodox method of telling a three-act story. It’s in reverse, with some funny and on-the-nose narration from Nick Offerman that deals with the harsh reality that life is precious because it’s finite and random. There’s a safer version of this film that would want to shield you from the fate we will all meet and make for a soft landing for the audience. Flanagan instead uses dark humor, dance, and hearty monologues to deliver his melancholic message with maturity, wisdom, and love, like a tough talk from a parent followed by a warm hug.
A World in Chaos With a Strange Twist
At the beginning of The Life of Chuck, the entire world itself is in disarray. We’re talking earthquakes, floods, computer systems going down, California dissolving into the sea, and food sources slowly being dismantled by climate change – real last-day biblical stuff. At the heart of it is a school teacher named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who is trying to discuss grades with parents occupied by “motions at everything going on around them.” Marty used to be married to a nurse named Felicia (Karen Gillan), but they have since divorced. If there’s anything the possible end of the world will make you want to do, it’s to make amends.
But as Marty and Felicia walk down memory lane, a weird phenomenon occurs throughout the unnamed town. Billboards, television commercials, and other projections of a smiling man named Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) start popping up everywhere with congratulations for “39 Great Years.” Who is Charles Krantz, and why is he the most famous person we have never heard of? Well, that’s part of the mystery Flanagan allows us to see bit by bit, which is best left unspoiled.
Dance Like Everyone’s Watching
Act two is more of an essential interlude to the story, a snapshot of Charles’ life. On any given day, we might walk through a town square and ignore an instrumentalist playing for tips. Well, beating the drums proves to be hypnotic for Chuck, and he gives himself over to the music — where Hiddelston impressively engages in a dance number for almost 10 minutes.
The good vibes are so strong they sweep up a young lady named Lauren (Annalise Basso), fresh from being unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend. Given the sci-fi tone of the first act, it almost feels uncharacteristic for Flanagan to allow this vibrancy to go on for as long as it does. However, it’s exciting and refreshing. The realizations which follow hit you that much harder because of the free-flowing nature The Life of Chuck takes on.
Mia Sara & Mark Hamill Raise The Life of Chuck
Flanagan looks to tie this evolving world together in the last act by looking back on Chuck’s childhood. Unfortunately, it’s scarred by tragedy, as a middle school-aged Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) lost his parents. Luckily for him, he has excellent influences in his life who are rooting for him along the way: Chuck’s music-loving grandmother Sarah (Mia Sara) and grandfather Albie (Mark Hamill), who finds his art through numbers as a long-time accountant.
We see Chuck’s love for dance blossom from watching musicals with Sarah and working up the nerve to join a dance club at school. Even as this de facto coming-of-age story is happening, Flanagan works some of his magic to make it unconventional. When Alble is not speaking of practicality and pitching his notion of addition and subtraction as the best way to achieve the art Chuck loves, he lays down one ground rule – nobody goes in the upstairs cupola.
Carpe Diem and the Coexistence of Life’s Beauty and Sadness
The actual reason will become clear once we reach the final iteration of Chuck’s character (played by Jacob Tremblay). A key to that notion is echoed often throughout the latter half of The Life of Chuck through the reference to Walt Whitman’s 1855 “Song of Myself” and the famous line, “I contain multitudes.” Ultimately, our memories, personalities, and experiences are particles colliding and reacting with one another to make us whole. For all that to matter, you must take the good with the bad – meaning to appreciate love, you must have heartbreak (and so on). You’ll appreciate Flanagan for providing the full spectrum and maybe dance your heart out in the process.
The ways in which Flanagan delivers this admittedly simple concept are thrilling and emotionally poignant. It’s a deviation from the usual horror and thrills of both Flanagan and King, but maintains a kind of Twilight Zone-like sense of the fantastical and metaphysical, i.e. the 1962 episode, “Kick The Can.” The Life of Chuck has fantastical elements, but they are clever devices pointing to mortality (and sometimes its cruel realizations).
Only two things are certain in this lifetime: we will live and we will die. Sure, “carpe diem” stories are commonplace (and even within the Toronto Film Festival itself with We Live in Time), but they have an emotional impact because of their universal truths. The Life of Chuck wears that story well.
