Review 757: The Life of Chuck

What are the seminal moments in your life? What are the memories that stay with you? How do those memories compile into a life? There are moments in life and you don't always know when those moments are and you may not recognise them when you're in them, but in hindsight they tend to be important. All we have are our connections to each other and our relationships. Those questions are just the tip of the ice berg in Mike Flanagan's beautifully filmed, tastefully told, life affirming fantasy drama The Life of Chuck.

Based on the novella The Life of Chuck by Stephen King, the film follows three chapters in the life of accountant Charles "Chuck" Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss and the multitudes contained in all of us.

When I first learned of Hiddleston's involvement with Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck, I naturally assumed that he would the star of the film. As it turned out, that was only the poster. For about the first 30-40 minutes of the film which cover "Act 3" of the novella, I have no idea who Charles Krantz is. He's an enigma. As the film goes on and we learn more about this person, the enigma starts to fall away. Chuck Krantz is the everyman   It's the story of a man who is trying to rationalise the insanity of and the beautiful, wondrous chaos of being alive. 

Mike Flanagan clearly went to the Christopher Nolan school of storytelling when making this film as, like the novella, the film does the Momento thing of telling the story in reverse order. What starts out as a story about the end of the universe is eventually revealed to be the story about the life of one person. It's a film that's more about an idea than a narrative. It about how inside everyone is their entire lived in experience; the universe of their entire life is inside every person. It really embraces the idea that life only makes sense when you look back on it. It's a film about celebrating the little moments in your life that bring you joy and reconnecting to those moments somehow as well as having gratitude towards those moments and spending your life on things that you enjoy. This is a beautiful and heartfelt message that is sure to resonate with audiences. We all contain multitudes. Each of the acts is about a particular moment in Chuck's life that define him as a person. These three seemingly desperate acts are the story of the three pillars that made his life what it is. They're connected by a thread about making connections. 

The first (or should I say) last act is set during the last days of Chuck's life, his world is coming to an end, starting with the Internet coming down to Natural disasters around the world. The main characters of the first act are not in fact Chuck Krantz, but rather public school teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife, Felicia Gordon (Karen Gillan), a nurse who are brought together as civilisation appears to be falling apart and the way its depicted is profound. All set to a wonderfully sardonic narration from Nick Offerman.

There are hints of Spielberg's The Fablemans in how we see where Chuck Krantz's love and passion for dancing started with how his grandmother Sarah (Mia Sara) introduced him to the art through classic Old Hollywood musicals and teaching him a few moves

the score by the Newton Brothers is beautiful  There's great use of natural lighting to give the scenes a warm and bright look. The production design is all magnificent, a wonderful combination of old and the new with Chuck's inner world looking very modern but also old fashioned at the same time from Felicia's use of a landline and Marty inheriting Chuck's fondness for old films as well as Neon signs of Chuck Krantz in windows. The dance sequences are electrifying, expertly utilising multiple styles 

Tom Hiddleston isn't in the film as much as one would expect, he only has about 19 minutes of screen time  and all of it is during Act 2, but he owns every minute of it. Every gesture and body language he exudes leaps off the screen. He's got enormous love & enormous joy inside of him, but it's all contained inside a very quiet exterior and that interior joy just bursts out of him as we clearly see in Act 2 of this film.  Tom Hiddleston is a marvel, an actor of such versatility that it evades description. His talents as an actor are

Karen Gillan and Chiwetel Ejiofor also appear in the film playing Felicia & Marty who are people we later le Felicia & Marty are much the protagonists of the first act of the film. They're coming to terms with the fact that this is all going to be over Marty is coming to a point of realisation. He's still trying to be a teacher and hold on to some semblance of humanity. He's also dealing with the fallout of a divorce after his marriage to Felicia didn't work out and the fact that he still cares for her. Felicia is a natural caretaker  Even though they're no longer married, they still have a very deep, strong bond which the two beautifuly play out over the last (or is it first) act of the film. 

The film makes excellent use of child actors Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay and Trinity Bliss whom you may recognise from James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water as Jake and Neytiri's daughter, Tuk. 

The film features Mark Hamill in one of his best performances in recent years playing Albie Krantz, Chuck's grandfather. Albie is absolutely in love with his grandson and he recognises that he's special and wants to share his enthusiasms with him. Albie is a quiet fellow and yet the only thing that gets him excited is accounting. Hamill just exubes warmth, wisdom &  onto 

Matthew Lillard, Annalise Basso, David Dastmalchian, Violet McGraw, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan & Molly Quinn round out the films  Siegel, in particular, has a very touching scene with young Chuck playing his idealistic teacher in which she describes how inside all of us 

5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.