DAN WEBSTER:
The residents of the small town in which the movie The Life of Chuck is set all are witness to the same vision. And whether they see it on billboards, on television test patterns or looming through suburban-house windows, the vision tends to be much the same.
It’s a thank-you note to a guy named Charles Krantz.
Few know who he is. They’re cognizant only that the visions of the man we come to know as Chuck show up just as everything else in their lives seems to be falling apart. Sinkholes are opening up in downtown areas, causing massive traffic jams. The Internet is down, and soon television reception follows—as does, eventually, the power grid itself.
We learn all this in Chapter 3 of The Life of Chuck, a film directed by Mike Flanagan and adapted from a Stephen King short story that was included in King’s 2020 collection titled If It Bleeds. But, you ask, what happens in the first two chapters that leads to the film’s apocalyptic ending?
Well, there’s the rub. Because just as King crafted his story—one of the non-horror tales that he’s known for—Flanagan tells Chuck’s tale in reverse order. Similar (with obvious differences) to David Fincher’s 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, we follow Chuck—who transforms from a mere vision into a living, breathing character—from adulthood back to his youth.
Chapter 3 mainly involves the middle-school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan). They are the ones most affected by the chaos that consumes their world, a similar kind of chaos that should be familiar to anyone paying attention to real-life news reports blaring today from all corners. Still on friendly terms, the two reconnect even as a kind of Armageddon approaches.
Chapter 2 introduces us to the adult Chuck (played by Tom Hiddleston), a staid, composed accountant away from home on a business conference who—struck by the drumming of a street busker (played by the musician known as The Pocket Queen)—does an impromptu dance routine with a young passerby (played by Annalise Basso). The performance delights the crowd, and leaves Chuck surprised but feeling at peace—even as the film’s narrator (voiced by Nick Offerman) delivers dire news.
Finally, Chapter 3, gives us Chuck’s back story. We learn about how he (his younger versions played by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak and Jacob Tremblay) came to live with his grandparents, Sarah (played by Mia Sara) and Albie (played by a remarkably good Mark Hamill). We learn, too, how more than one tragedy—and the guidance provided by both Sarah and Albie—help shape Chuck’s life. And crucial to his development is learning to dance, which gives him the confidence he will one day put to good use.
Not that the writer King, even interpreted by Flanagan, can ignore the supernatural completely. He does give us a locked room in the cupola of his grandparents’ home, a room that horrifies Chuck’s grandfather so much he makes Chuck promise never to enter it. Nor can any story written by King not throw in the occasional clichéd expression as if it were something cool for a tween to utter, just as his work typically references childhood trauma.
Flanagan, though, who does triple work here as director, screenwriter and editor, smooths out such King traits, as he has before with 2017’s Gerald’s Game and 2019’s Doctor Sleep. And he’s helped by good performances all around, not just by Hiddleston et al. but also by by Carl Lumly as a philosophic mortician and Matthew Lillard as Marty’s apprehensive neighbor. Besides Hamill, though, the performance of Pajak as the 11-year-old Chuck stands out.
Movies made from King’s non-horror novels and stories include both the critically acclaimed Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, among others. The Life of Chuck stands out, though, not just for the way it unfolds but largely because it stresses the importance of living life as well as you’re able. Yes, King says, life can be—and often is—difficult.
But it can be beautiful as well. Being connected to others, loving them and being loved in return, is the best way to pass whatever time we are granted. And if you can do so while occasionally dancing, so much the better.
For Spokane Public Radio, I’m Dan Webster.
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Movies 101 host Dan Webster is the senior film critic for Spokane Public Radio and a blogger for Spokesman.com.