The Life Of Chuck Review: A Winsome Tale From Stephen King [TIFF 2024]

It's a truth universally acknowledged that Stephen King's non-horror novellas tend to make better movies: "The Shawshank Redemption," "Stand By Me," the list goes on and on. "The Life of Chuck" is yet another example of this. With Mike Flanagan, a director who is no stranger to Stephen King adaptations, at the helm, "The Life of Chuck" is a film that finds such joy and hope in the process of living — even when it's actively caught up in the process of dying. It features an excellent ensemble cast who bring tremendous heart to each of their cinematic segments, and represents Stephen King at his most sentimental and uncynical.

As "The Life of Chuck" opens, things are pretty dire. English teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is struggling to keep his students engaged amidst a rapidly deteriorating landscape where extreme natural disasters are occurring on a daily basis, communications infrastructure is on its last leg, and it appears to all that the Earth is experiencing its last dying breaths. The only constant is a mysterious retirement notice from a local bank thanking someone named Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) for 39 wonderful years, an ad that appears on billboard, television, and radio long after everything else has stopped broadcasting. But who is this Charles Krantz, and why is he seemingly so important to the end days of this dying world?

Rather than employing a traditional three act structure, "The Life of Chuck" devotes one to the apocalyptic landscape, while the other two explore ... well, the life of Chuck. It's an impressive lift to make these vignettes blend together, considering how distinct they appear to be from each other. Mike Flanagan not only accomplishes this feat, but somehow weaves them so seamlessly that they complement one another perfectly, and each is improved by the presence of the others. Because of this, "The Life of Chuck" becomes a movie that you immediately want to rewatch afterwards, to fully appreciate all the connections that you may have missed the first time around.

There are strong performances throughout the entire film, but we have to shout out Benjamin Pajak, who plays 11-year-old Charles Krantz in the third act. He brings a maturity and "old soul" quality to the role, which counterbalances the sheer joyfulness of his impressive dance sequences. (Yes, there is a surprising amount of dancing going on in "The Life of Chuck," and every moment of it is utterly delightful.) This role is a lot to ask of a young actor, considering its emotional content, physicality, and the fact that he has to believably blend with another performer's interpretation of the character. He accomplishes all of this with aplomb, making his little corner of the film the most engaging.

"The Life of Chuck" is doggedly determined to celebrate the beauty of the process of living, even when it ends — as it inevitably must — in death. By positing that every person has an entire universe in their head of everyone that they've ever met and everything they've ever learned or experienced, it lingers on the magic of such a rich inner life, one that is hardly dimmed by the fact it someday comes to an end. To say much more would probably ruin the experience, but it's safe to say that this thing — interestingly enough, coming from noted horror director Mike Flanagan — is about as uplifting and life-affirming as they come.

In fact, that might be exactly where it loses some viewers. There's an argument to be made that it's too earnest, wandering over from moving into emotionally manipulative territory. But while it's obvious from the word go that "The Life of Chuck" wears its heart stubbornly on its sleeve, there's enough darkness in its narrative to cut the film's sweetness, preventing it from becoming unpalatably saccharine. Even Stephen King's non-horror stories have a touch of the eerie and unsettling, and this is no exception.

Although the nonlinear narrative might prove to be a stumbling block for some, and others might take objection to how laden it is with sentimentality, on the whole, it's difficult not to be charmed by "The Life of Chuck." Tom Hiddleston is in the film much less than you might expect from the advertisements, but he's perfectly winsome as the titular Chuck, shedding the sardonic cynicism he's worn in the Marvel universe for so long. The story that's built around him, in all its heart-warming, slightly confusing glory, is nothing less than the cinematic equivalent of a giant bear hug.

"The Life of Chuck" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and at time of writing had yet to secure theatrical distribution.