On July 17, cinemas began showing the fantasy drama «The Life of Chuck», based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. It is part of a series published in 2020 of the assembly «If It Bleeds». We have already wrote a review of the film adaptation of another work from the same collection, «Mr. Herrigan’s Phone» (2022), and today we propose to find out how the film adaptation of the second of the four short stories in the collection turned out.
Pluses:
a fascinating intrigue in the first act; amazing dancing by Tom Hiddleston and Annalisa Basso in the second; children's dance also evokes a sincere response — in the third (in general, children are great here);
Minuses:
somewhat naive philosophical messages that lie on the surface; too much lethargy, boredom, and narrative imbalance in the movie (the third act is the weakest), especially for a «amazing life-affirming masterpiece»; not enough Tom Hiddleston;
«The Life of Chuck»
Genre science fiction, drama
Director Mike Flanagan
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Annalisa Basso, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Mark Hamill, Matthew Lillard, David Dastmalchian, Nick Offerman (narrator)
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
The whole world is rapidly falling into the abyss. Widespread natural disasters have already damaged the planet. The Internet is down (what the hell are we going to do without porn sites?). Television has become just a fond memory of the past. Soon, His Majesty the Blackout will be knocking on the door. Such a disappointing start immediately reminds us of «Leave the World Behind» (2023) is a disturbing apocalyptic thriller based on the novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam, published, like King’s collection, in 2020. But this story is not about that.
Once a school teacher, like the one Neo in the eyes of the malevolent Agent Smith, Mr. Anderson was walking home from work while there was still a road in that part of town. Suddenly, his eyes came across a strange billboard depicting an unremarkable middle-aged office worker. It bore the inscription «Charles Krantz: 39 great years! Thanks, Chuck!».
Later, against the backdrop of a steadily fading world, Anderson, and all the other townspeople, notice the mention of the mysterious man literally everywhere. Tributes to Chuck are heard on the radio, on the broken television, on billboards neatly bolted to street lamp posts, and even an airplane leaves a message in the sky. So who the hell is this Charles Krantz?
This is not the first time that the famous horror maker Mike Flanagan has turned to King’s prose — he previously directed «Gerald’s Game» (2017) and «Doctor Sleep» (2019), and the filmmaker is planning a series adaptation of «Carrie» for Amazon. This time Flanagan had to move away from everything sinister and frightening, just as it minimized in the story and the «King of horror» himself, whose work is famous for not horror alone.
One of the official posters, in the image of which the allusion to the «Forrest Gump», promised us «an unforgettable experience», «a real miracle and masterpiece», «an emotional epic», «the best film adaptation of Stephen King» (somewhere at this point, we all got embarrassed «The Shawshank Redemption» and «The Green Mile») and, attention, «one of the most beautiful films ever made». Wow! However, all these high-profile quotes from enthusiastic reviewers from God knows what media outlets are more pure marketing than substance. If not to say that they are doing the film a disservice — after reading such endlessly praising reviews, you might start hoping for a cinematic miracle. But it doesn’t happen.
Flanagan transfers the novel to the screen almost literally, almost verbatim (and in some scenes, literally), which makes it unnecessary to watch for those who are familiar with the original source.
«The Life of Chuck» is positioned as a life-affirming movie with a distinct philosophical overtone. Viewers love such stories, as evidenced by the high ratings on well-known movie portals and the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. They have their practical benefits now, in the moment, but not much artistic value. Because the content, the very essence, is obvious, but the philosophy, as it turned out, is not that deep. And everything is packaged in an inappropriately complicated narrative.
The local tweet-sized slogan «Every life is an amazing universe», or the words «I contain multitudes» from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself, which is mentioned directly, will best explain the meanings inherent in the story. We can only add that every moment is significant, and every death — is no less than the end of the world.
However, for an emotional life-affirming story that can shake the viewer up or energize him emotionally, «The Life of Chuck» has surprisingly little life and emotion. The rhythm is more like a slow waltz than an incendiary samba, whose presence is only sporadic.
For the most part, these are conversational films, with voiceovers everywhere, and this is not a good sign. Yes, humanistic passages about the value of human life, each of which constitutes a separate universe, are more important today than ever. But at the same time, against the backdrop of «deep concern» world realities, when death has become something so everyday and familiar that it makes your hair stand on end, the story in the film sounds fake and somewhat naive.
Probably, for some people, the sentimentality and philosophical nature of the film will be enough to spend more than 100 minutes comfortably watching it. The film will probably appeal to many people who are not familiar with the novel. But for the more pragmatic viewer, who is at risk of giving up on «The Life of Chuck», I will allow myself to say quote a colleague from The Guardian, — «an incoherent movie that never rises above the philosophy of Instagram captions».
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