The Life Of Chuck Review

Evan D.

Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the The Shining. His comments about the film and its director have softened somewhat over the years but I think a lot about that response in comparison to the praise he lavishes on far less essential adaptations of his work. On the screen King requires an expert translator of his writing. Someone who can take the ideas and themes from the stories and dig deeper or realize them more fully. Frank Darabont did this when he directed the ever enduring The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Like it or not, Kubrick is one of those visionaries. After Doctor Sleep and now The Life of Chuck, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Mike Flanagan simply is not that translator.

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​Adapted from a novella of the same name, The Life of Chuck’s title is instructive. The film is a peek into three pivotal moments of one man’s life, told in reverse. In the first section, titled Act 3, a schoolteacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurse (Karen Gillan) contend with what seems to be the end of the world. As natural disasters rip apart the world, those still surviving are inundated with strange advertisements honoring a man named Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) and “39 great years.” 

In Act 2 we meet this mysterious Chuck, an accountant out of town for a conference. Wandering an unnamed — and dispiritingly artificial — city, he comes across a street performing drummer (Taylor Gordon,) or busker, and breaks into dance. It is a brief sequence meant to juxtapose Chuck’s type A career and the tremendous spirit buried beneath it. Throughout this small window into Chuck’s adult life, many eerie parallels to the apocalyptic Act 3 appear. 

The final sequence is the first chronologically, introducing us to a young, newly orphaned Chuck. In middle school and living with his grandparents (A curmudgeonly Mark Hamill and radiant Mia Sara) we see young Chuck’s (aptitude for numbers and passion for dance. He endures a great deal of tragedy, some of it supernaturally tinged, but never loses grip of his enthusiasm for life.

At the very core, the ideas in The Life of Chuck are fascinating ones. Kierkegaard’s famous line about life being understood in reverse immediately comes to mind. Philosophically we know that to be true but I am not entirely sure that much is gained by the structuring this story from finish to start. Conceptually it is interesting to think about the worlds we build in our mind and what happens to them when we’re gone. Presented before context though, Act 3 emphasizes mystery far more than insight. It also creates an eventuality that hollows out the rest of the story. 

That isn’t to say it’s the wrong choice, rather pulling this novella out to feature length necessarily thins it. For its faults, the mystery of the opening finale is the most interesting part of the movie. Many of the thoughts presented will be echoed — or more appropriately, sourced — in later segments but their impact dulled by repetition. Presenting Chuck’s life before his death would have certainly sapped emotional impact from Act 3 without adding much depth as Act’s 1 and 2 reveal far too little about the titular character. There exists such a specificity to this character — his love of dance, his acuity for math — that he cannot be an audience proxy but he isn’t fleshed out enough to feel genuine and its a major issue for the film. 

If the thinness of the story sets a problem, the flatness of the adaptation undoubtedly exacerbates it. For a film containing world consuming acts of god, set piece dance numbers and ghostly premonitions, the whole thing feels so tame. During the big second act dance, when the camera cuts from Chuck back to the busker we get a focus shift to catch the dance reflected in a window. Its so quick that you’d miss it if you blinked and that brevity feels indicative of the missed opportunities to inject more creativity into a fantasy film. The whole thing is competently shot and composed but this story really needed some inventiveness.

Far from just the camera choices, the entirety of The Life of Chuck feels faithful to the written word but hollow in evoking the ideas. Every outdoor scene is clearly shot on a soundstage, which makes a ton of sense for the artificial world of in Chuck’s deteriorating mind but a lot less for sequences of his real life. Even the dialogue, meant to be elliptical, is so blunt that there is no room for the joy of figuring out where the film is taking you or personal interpretation. 

It isn’t all bad, of course. Elements of mystery in acts 1 and 3 are compelling yet underbaked.  Ejiofor gives a nuanced performance that anchors the first third of the film. And what a delight it is to see Mia Sara on screen again. The Ferris Bueller alum hasn’t been in a film for over a decade but she lights up every scene she’s in here. 

Nobody needs to be told that Stephen King has a knack for story. He has been one of the most prolific and successful writers of his era. When adaptations of his work are at best, it comes from a filmmaker who engages with and challenges the material. Turning those words into image means mining deeper than the surface of the page. The Life of Chuck dutifully transcribes its source material but fails to make it resonate. 5/10