“The Life of Chuck” - TIFF24 Film Review
This review was originally posted on Film Obsessive.
If Mike Mills were to ever make a horror-adjacent film, it would be something like Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, and calling it horror, even horror-adjacent, may be miscategorizing it. However, there is a sense of dread that covers a portion of the film. The Life of Chuck is adapted from Stephen King’s novella of the same name and it marks Flanagan’s fourth adaptation of one of King’s works. He has previously tackled Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, with The Dark Tower on the horizon. Flanagan is a rare director who understands the deep fear beneath all of King’s monsters and ghosts: that death is coming for us all and we may waste this one life of ours.
The Life of Chuck is a story of a man told in reverse. The End is coming for the first cast of characters the audience meets in what is described as “Act Three: Thanks, Chuck.” California is falling into the ocean, and sinkholes, volcanoes, flooding, any and all natural disasters are imminent. How do you mourn the end of the world? Many people have taken to seeking out their exes or people they’ve lost contact with. While TV stations and cellular services are failing, one consistent message is broadcast across all media platforms: “Charles Krantz. Thirty-nine great years! Thanks, Chuck!” The question of who Chuck Krantz is as a person is a mystery to all, except, of course, those who loved Chuck Krantz. The film moves backward in time to show Chuck months before he died (Tom Hiddleston), as a teen (Jacob Tremblay), and as a young boy (Benjamin Pajak).
Superhero movies have killed sentimentality. They’re always too quick with a joke and afraid of letting the audience or the characters live in a moment of genuine reflection. That, however, is the core of every single one of Flanagan’s works, including The Life of Chuck. He seems to only exist in these moments of openness and that’s unexpected, given that he primarily works in the horror genre. Of course, if you’ve seen one of his films or limited series, you know that ghost stories are merely love stories. We’re all haunted by the people we love who have left us, and haunting doesn’t have to be a negative thing. In The Life of Chuck, one of Chuck’s teachers (Kate Siegel) explains Walt Whitman’s famous “I contain multitudes” quote to him, telling him that he’s the sum of everything he knows, everyone he’s met, and all he has learned. There are galaxies within him and he has the potential to be wonderful, we all do. We simply must not lose the multitudes within us. They may be hidden, but when presented with the opportunity to let them be free and dance, we must.
The first third of The Life of Chuck, when the characters are detailing all of the ecological meltdowns that are happening, hits a little too close to home. There’s a sense that we may not be too far away from this reality. What if we’ve passed the point of no return when it comes to this planet? What if how we treated the planet didn’t matter and it was going to fail no matter what? We likely won’t ever know, but we’re being forced to live through these overwhelming events on an almost daily basis. The Life of Chuck doesn’t try to answer why the world is ending, but it does encourage the audience to ponder how they’d like to spend their own end of days.
Because it’s a Stephen King novella, there are some supernatural elements at play. Specifically, a locked-up attic space that Chuck’s grandfather (Mark Hamill) tells him never to enter. It seems to allow the person who enters to have visions of the future. What Chuck’s grandfather does tell him is that it’s the waiting that is life’s most difficult quality, but it’s also all we have. We’re all essentially waiting for the end, whether it comes from old age or the planet finally dying or any other reason. We are all waiting. We can look at our waiting time not as a death sentence, but as a time to enjoy life itself. To take the hand of the pretty girl who asks us to dance and never look back for an instant. To fall head over heels in love with what brings us joy. The Life of Chuck is miraculous, a feather in Flanagan’s already-decorated cap, and a dance worth saying yes to.
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