Let’s get this out of the way now: between Gerald’s Game, DoctorSleep, and The Life of Chuck, writer/director Mike Flanagan is a master at adapting Stephen King! There is no question about his remarkable strengths as a filmmaker.
While much of his work contains moments that will make your skin crawl, what makes him so brilliant is his ability to find the humanity in every single story he brings to life. Yet with The Life of Chuck, Flanagan does something quite unprecedented for his career: he removes the horror altogether.
King has always been one of the most interesting writers of our time. For every Shining, there’s a Shawshank. And The Life of Chuck squarely falls into the category of the latter. There are supernatural elements to it, and beautifully odd moments, but it wears its heart on its sleeve unapologetically. All of this, Flanagan is great at adapting. However, if you’re expecting an all-timer like Darabont’s adaptation of Shawshank or Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, it would be best to check those expectations at the door.
Adapted from the short story that was part of King’s anthology If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck delivers what it promises, chronicling the life of the eponymous Charles Kranz (aka “Chuck”) from boyhood to adulthood, and eventually to his death. However, it’s told in reverse chronological order, moving backward from an apocalyptic event that follows English teacher Marty Anderson and his ex-wife, Felicia Gordon, before transitioning deeper into the story of protagonist Chuck Kranz.
Thematically, one could read the title and see one or two scenes and surmise that the film is all about making the most of the short time we have in this world, and the power of human connection and emotion, embracing the beauty of self and the beauty of life. Flanagan is undoubtedly the right filmmaker to bring this to the screen. He pointedly makes this a reflection of post-COVID times, but does so in a positive manner, acknowledging that at any point in time, the world could end. War could break out. Disease can ravage whole countries. And on a more micro level, anyone we love at any point can pass away. So, how do we cope with these levels of darkness? By dancing, and seizing every beautiful moment like it could be our last.
All of this is incredibly beautiful. However, perhaps it’s the cynicism talking, but it’s a message we’ve seen countless times from films like Dead Poets Society to even something as corny as The Bucket List, Elizabethtown, or Garden State. While The Life of Chuck executes this nicely, I must admit its proclivity to become a bit over-saccharine and trite in its delivery. For example, I love how amazingly stars Tom Hiddleston and Benjamin Pajak dance, especially with the complex and brilliant sequences from La La Land choreographer Mandy Moore. However, we know exactly where things are going from the moment Chuck sets down his briefcase.
It’s not Flanagan’s fault that this is essentially the premise of the story. And he’s doing everything that he can to deliver it as beautifully as possible, succeeding so much as a filmmaker by getting impressive performances out of his cast. Hiddleston is wonderfully charming. As is Mia Sara, coming out of retirement to put on an astonishingly terrific performance as Sarah Kranz, Charles’ grandmother. And naturally, the entire Flanagan troop is along for the ride too, from Carl Lumbly, Mark Hamill, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Kate Siegel, Violet McGraw, and more.
The cinematography and production design are also so incredibly outstanding. Director of Photography Eben Bolter presents a fabricated version of the night sky and the universe, highlighted by the microscopic silhouettes of our protagonists, emphasizing both the universe’s infinite nature and our unique role within it. Moments of dread do come with darkness, as do moments of weirdness when homes begin glowing with ads for Chuck’s “retirement,” all captured beautifully on film. Additionally, the sets of Chuck’s hometown have a timeless Rockwellian Americana look to them, while still allowing for modern conveniences and electronics to exist. It’s staged and visually presented to a wonderfully astonishing degree.
The catch is that some of what’s retained from the original story doesn’t always work. For instance, while I’m a sucker for Nick Offerman, I found the narration to be incredibly distracting. The film could have significantly benefited from removing it altogether and allowing the audience to fully appreciate the subtlety of the emotions and decisions portrayed on screen. Instead, in Offerman’s signature deadpan voice, we get distracting commentary about how Chuck spontaneously decides to drop his briefcase and start dancing, as we see him drop his briefcase and start dancing. I understand that inner monologues and emotions unsaid may not necessarily translate well to audiences during a time when A Minecraft Movie is the highest domestic grosser of the year. However, there’s an art to conveying emotion that Flanagan is incredibly skilled at, as evidenced by his usual work and many moments in this film, which we didn’t need the King narration to accompany. As such, Flanagan should have just trusted himself to convey without words what Offerman’s Narrator is overtly saying.
Thus, it’s decisions like this that keep a movie like The Life of Chuck from achieving the levels of greatness we have seen from Flanagan previously. It’s visually stunning, incredibly charming, and very uplifting. But it’s also extremely on-the-nose and a bit too cutesy for its own good. It’s almost like Flanagan is pushing himself to do Forrest Gump, which would be a step back in quality from what he’s known best for. As such, the levels of complexity and depth one might expect from a Flanagan production feel very surface-level and somewhat preachy.
Part of this is that we don’t get a lot of depth in many of the characters we spend time with, such as Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Marty and Karen Gillan’s Felicia. Though the ones we do, namely Chuck and his grandparents, Flanagan does a terrific job of exploring. This enhances the heart of the personal scenes for Chuck, but also diminishes any tension from any world-ending stakes of the apocalyptic events of the film’s first (technically third) act. That means your investment really won’t happen until the second act, and that’s a problem.
Another issue is that the film can be anticlimactic at times. There are a ton of questions that are intentionally left ambiguous, but the film puts a lot of emphasis on establishing some of its weirdness, so you can’t help but expect some of those to be addressed. However, Flanagan doesn’t, likely because King didn’t. So we are left with lingering splinters of questions stuck in our minds when the credits start rolling. It is somewhat unfortunate, but also intentionally open to our interpretation.
For me, however, the only way to interpret this film for any of it to make sense is that everything we are seeing is condensed and localized purely in the head of Charles Kranz. I think the movie goes out of its way to highlight this in a lovely scene with Kate Siegel’s Miss Richards. The story we are living out is him recounting his life backwards as he’s dying. It would explain the ambiguous time in which the film is set, the whimsical nature of the sky, why certain characters never age, although Chuck does, and ultimately why everything eventually goes dark. Seen through that lens, the film is a lot more successful, if this is indeed the point (and it has to be). It’s both subtle in its ambiguity and overt in its theming, which tends to clash.
Another issue dragging it down a bit is the score. Though The Newton Brothers have produced so many bangers for Flanagan (and they also did awesome music for X-Men ’97), they try to get super emotionally manipulative here. It’s extra schmaltzy work from a team mostly known for atmospheric and moody tone-setters. They are trying way too hard to make you cry, but I’m just not eating it up, because the intent is melodramatic and transparent.
I don’t want this to deter anyone from seeing The Life of Chuck because, in truth, it is a winning and inspiring movie. Flanagan’s take on King’s story is probably as good as anyone could get with the material; visually beautiful and still very emotional. It’s anchored by magnificent performances from the ensemble, led by Hiddleston. But it’s also a bit too over-the-top in its cliched messaging and a bit too overly sweet to be considered a classic. Flanagan is trying his best to infuse this with soul, but admittedly, he tries a bit too hard, so that he beats you over the head with emotion and beauty. Overall, you will smile a great deal when you see The Life of Chuck, but you’re equally as likely to shrug it off with a “that’s nice” by the time you leave the theater. I admittedly wish I could give it a higher score, but sometimes, that’s the way life goes.
Rating: 7/10