In 1977, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a method of understanding the vast chronology of the universe by condensing its totality into a single calendar year. It goes to lay out that if the Big Bang happens on January 1st, the era in which human beings exist within would amount to merely the last ten seconds or so of December 31st. Alongside his equally popular pale blue dot observation, it goes a long ways to illustrating how insignificant our existence is in a purely cosmic sense. It is a daunting, perhaps uncomfortable thing to comprehend -and especially in a time of such borderline apocalyptic crisis as we find ourselves in today.
And yet, we know that we do matter. Not just as a species but as individuals. Our lives have meaning, and within the scope of our experiences there exists an incredible vastness as well; it is in everything we see and hear, every action we take, every relationship forged, every sensation felt. We cultivate our own worlds and we contain multitudes.
The Life of Chuck is a 2020 novella by Stephen King, published in his collection If It Bleeds. It is the story of an ordinary man and the end of the world; but it is not a horror story. On the contrary it belongs to that same other calibre of fiction he occasionally writes, and which includes such greats as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. These are better known by their movie adaptations in fairness, and perhaps the same will be true of The Life of Chuck, the first adaptation of one of King’s dramatic stories in quite some time. Like King himself, its director Mike Flanagan (who had previously adapted King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep), is stepping outside of the horror wheelhouse as well. He can’t do so fully, as evidenced by a couple beats of the film that make use of horror devices, but his spirit adapts well to this story’s register of what might be described as enigmatic hopefulness.
Structurally, The Life of Chuck is a curiosity. It is a life story in three acts that are presented in reverse chronology. What is more, the third, which is the first we see, has almost nothing to do with the film’s titular character, focusing instead on a schoolteacher played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and his ex-wife (Karen Gillan) in a New England town dealing with the impending end of the world -Charles “Chuck” Krantz only ever appearing as a face on a vague billboard that nobody can really understand the context of. The second act features his person, played by Tom Hiddleston, on an earlier trip to Boston where he makes a splash impromptu performance with a local busker. Only the first act, the most substantial, really explores his character through the story of his childhood characterized by the tragic loss of his parents and the discovery of a great talent and enthusiasm for dance. It is here where the latter acts retroactively take on provocative new meanings.
Flanagan maintains a deep reverence for King’s text, seemingly keeping much of its original verse through narration provided by Nick Offerman. It is a device that has its recurring necessity and in places adds colour to the storytelling -though it is relied upon too much in stretches, keeping most of the characters abstract and at an arm’s length of understanding. There is intention in this on Flanagan’s part, but it doesn’t always feel justified. Especially when it makes distinctly impersonal a movie that aims for a level of profound personal connection.
That may sound hyperbolic, especially with the subject matter of the third act consisting of several scenes of everyday people musing on the state of humanity at the doom of the world and only works backwards into something more intimate. But The Life of Chuck is constantly prompting its audience to consider their lives through its lens. A lens that equates an individual person’s life with that of the universe itself, to the point that both end at the same time and in connection with one another. The scope of Sagan’s model, pointedly reiterated by the movie, is matched in gravity, but not through the metrics we might expect. The cosmic value of a life is in the world it cultivates, something communicated aptly and with tender inspiration by the movie as it goes along.
On a glance, the life of Chuck Krantz does not appear so special or dramatic. Even in light of all we learn about him, his is a fairly ordinary existence -a kid who suffered some family tragedies, became enamoured by a youthful artistic pursuit, followed a more mundane but successful career, and died of cancer before his time. As a whole it is a narrative that is neither exhilarating nor miserable, beset with even moments of joy and pain. There are millions like Chuck, and that is the beauty of the film. The sum of his experiences and all the ways they connected and imprinted on the people and the world around him is drawn with exceeding weight by an atmosphere of enlightenment, by Flanagan’s soft touch, by the surprisingly ebullient cinematography (from Eben Bolter), and a raw, tremulous score by the Newton Brothers. And that moment of pure unadulterated spontaneity that we learn sticks with him until the end when most other memories have faded, is executed with an intensity of spirit that speaks for the movie itself. It is the film’s great centrepiece, the lushness of the space and slick editing, most of all the rhythm of the drums from busker Taylor (Taylor Gordon) and the enthralling choreography performed by Hiddleston and Annalise Basso, as the girl he pulls out of the crowd and makes her depressing day a good deal better, is exquisite.
Chuck is also played by Benjamin Pajak and Jacob Tremblay through the early portion of his story -with Hiddleston they all do a fine job accentuating a character whose depths are beneath the surface, though his head-space is indulged a fair bit as a child. Among the most endearing aspects of the movie is the relationship he has with his grandparents, played by Mia Sara and Mark Hamill, the former inspiring his love of dance and the latter persuading him (fairly convincingly) of the profundity of math as a career trajectory. Each vocation though is imparted to Chuck with a sense of purpose, the implicit acknowledgement that that is the best way to live. And in spite of his clear passion for dance and the obvious bias of a collective of artists rendering this story in its favour, there’s never any indication his later life was unhappy or necessarily repressed with the choices he had made. His grandfather’s framing was crucial to that, even if it came with some dashing of hopes.
This is a Stephen King story and as such is touched with at least a modest degree of magical realism. The opening last act is logistically impossible to take on entirely direct terms and there is sensationalism elsewhere to imply the inner life of Chuck is perhaps not so guarded as appears. Consider the vagueness of the timeline at each point in his life. A crux of the first act is the mysterious cupola on the roof of Chuck’s grandparents’ house that ultimately conceals a harrowing secret, yet one that is employed by the story in the end in a highly affirming way. For a movie that begins in such strife, such hauntingly recognizable dystopia as far as world discord is concerned and the image of apocalypse, it is such an optimistic screed. And Flanagan’s handling of it feels downright cathartic for him.
The Life of Chuck should be a mess of disharmony. Each section has wildly different levels of stakes and pacing and the puzzle though fully resolved, is never articulated as such. It has awkward moments to be sure, in some of the overuse of that narration and a bit of stunted acting here and there that comes just shy of Shyamalan. But the movie wears its heart on its sleeve and boasts its motivations proudly. It is a movie about the vast universe of our existence communicated via the moments and memories that weigh small in any objective measure but are really the foundational points in our lives. We never see Chuck meeting his wife or the birth of his children, we don’t see the advancement of his career, or even the moment he learns of his cancer diagnosis. But we see the roots of his passions and where they burst through, we see the choice he makes to endure the pains of life for its joys, and we see the value in his contentment and pride at that.
“39 Great Years! Thanks Chuck!”
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