‘The Life of Chuck' is a wondrous affirmation by way of Stephen King
As the scientific conceit makes clear, our lives are but imperceptible blips on the vast timeline of the universe. Yet Whitman's poem raises the idea that every psyche contains another sprawling world unto itself, populated with the people, memories and scars we collect while navigating our finite existence. What are we if not the remarkable sum of our experiences and our imaginations?
Adapted by Flanagan from Stephen King's 2020 novella, this meditation on the bittersweet beauty of the human condition is sweeping in sentiment and surgical in intent. Flanagan wants his audience to reflect on the passing moments of connection that carry outsize significance and the simple joys that make life worth living. Not saccharine but soulful, 'The Life of Chuck' arrives at life-affirming profundity through a blend of surrealist wonder and humanist truth. It's no wonder this marvel of a movie claimed the Toronto International Film Festival's coveted audience prize last fall.
Tom Hiddleston stars as the titular Charles Krantz, a dying accountant with a dormant love of dance, though we don't properly meet him until the middle of three 'acts' that unfold in reverse chronological order. But we do get enigmatic glimpses of him in 'Thanks, Chuck,' an opening stanza that alternately unnerves and compels while posing a puzzle that's pieced together in due time. Even if Nick Offerman's narrator at one point asks, 'Would answers make a good thing better?' — seemingly setting the stage for ambiguity — this heart-on-its-sleeve venture doesn't leave much unsaid.
In the initial act, environmental Armageddon has arrived. The internet, spotty for months, seems to have evaporated for good. Fires are blazing in the Midwest. Floods are sinking Florida. Earthquakes are ravaging California. And did a volcano just erupt in Germany? All the while, Hiddleston's smirking bean counter is being celebrated on billboards and broadcasts with the same platitude: 'Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!' Yet no one recognizes the man or has any clue what the hoopla is about. As an affable undertaker (Carl Lumbly) says, he's the 'Oz of the apocalypse.'
Chiwetel Ejiofor anchors the opening segment as a solemn schoolteacher reconnecting with his ex-wife (Karen Gillan), a nurse at a hospital so overwhelmed that the staff have started calling themselves the 'Suicide Squad.' Exuding palpable pathos, Ejiofor and Gillan are worthy vessels for this voyage into the void as the Newton Brothers' soothing score hums and Flanagan serves up fleetingly fantastical imagery.
Set nine months earlier, the second act, 'Buskers Forever,' introduces Hiddleston's Chuck as a genial fellow with a loving wife, a teenage son and an undetected brain tumor. As Chuck strolls past a drummer busking on a street corner (Taylor Gordon), a dormant desire to dance takes over. Gleefully roping in a passerby fresh off a breakup (Annalise Basso), our startlingly loose-limbed protagonist struts up a storm in a euphoric jolt of live-life-to-the-fullest joy.
How this exhilarating detour circles back to the opening chapter's existential despair is a satisfying journey explored in a final act that's best left unspoiled. Centered on a younger Chuck — played by Benjamin Pajak at age 10 and Jacob Tremblay as a teen — 'I Contain Multitudes' serves up love, grief and a dash of the supernatural, plus scene-stealing turns by Mia Sara and a gloriously grizzled Mark Hamill as Chuck's grandparents. Along the way, callbacks and connective tissue provide a path to the film's beating heart.
While the horror auteur Flanagan is known for tapping into King's disturbing side — in film adaptations of 'Gerald's Game' and 'Doctor Sleep,' plus an upcoming 'Carrie' series — 'The Life of Chuck' marks an obvious departure. Now that he's delivered an elegy in the vein of 'Stand By Me' or 'The Shawshank Redemption,' Flanagan has made one thing clear: He's attuned to King at every frequency.
R. At area theaters. Contains language, brief suspense and images of environmental disasters. 111 minutes.
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