The Life of Chuck
The Life of Chuck
If Mike Mills were ever to take a stab at making a film that can be called horror or horror adjacent, it should be something like Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck. Launched with what can be called its world premiere in the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, many may disagree with characterization of the film, horror, yet alone horror adjacent.
Nonetheless, there is a sort of oppressive atmosphere that pervades a segment of the narrative. The Life of Chuck is based on a novella of the same name by Stephen King and this is the fourth time Flanagan has directed a movie based on King’s literature. He had previously done Gerald’s game and Doctor sleep, where as The Dark Tower is looming.
Flanagan belongs to that fortunate minority of directors who realizes the core horror that encompasses all of Stephen King’s creatures and specters: we are all going to die someday and this singular journey is all we have, and we might squander it all.
This story of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz is told from the end to the very beginning – to the Beginning. Thank You for Chuck, there comes an End to the first casting in stage setting, when the audience is made to understand Act Three.
Seeing that the date of Each California goes into blah blah, sinkholes, volcano, flooding, all and everything related with natural calamities is bound to come. And how does a person grieve when the world is coming to an end? There have been many aspects concerning this and a number of people have been looking for their partners especially when they have unscrupulously parted.
It is dry in the sarcophagus, the television and mobile phone operators cease to function, but everywhere there is an identical message: “Charles Krantz. Thirty-nine greate years! Thank you for Chuck!” No one else knows what sort of person this Chuck Krantz is.
Only those who loved Chuck Krantz, of course. Thus the film is going backward in time showing what Chuck looked like months before his death (Tom Hiddleston), when he was a teenager (Jacob Tremblay) and a little boy (Benjamin Pajak).
Sentimentality is a casualty of the superhero film. They are always such in an urge to crack the next wisecrack and shrink from giving the audience and even the characters a genuine moment of serenity. That, however, is the essence that fuels the entire Flanagan’s works even The Life of chuck.
This is the genre where he seems to only function during those interactive moods which is surprising since he is primarily a horror film maker. Obviously, those who have watched any of his films or limited series appreciate that ghost notifications are simply masquerading love messages.
All of us are filled with the desire to see again those people who loved us so much that they eventually decided to leave us and being haunted does not have to be such a terrible thing. In The Life of Chuck, one of Chuck’s teachers (Kate Siegel) elaborates on Walt Whitman’s wider meaning by saying “I contain multitudes” to Chuck, adding that he is bot only a man but the sum of all he has seen or even all people he has known.
There are worlds within himhe has the goodness to become exceptional and all of us too. All that we opine is that we stop being that multitude inside us. While they may be repressed, when the opportunity arises for them to be set free and frolic about, we must seize it.
The first section of The Life of Chuck, when the characters are listing various ecological disasters that might be taking place, is strikingly similar to where one lives. To the audience there is some perception that this reality may not be too far within their grasp.
Would these changes in attitudes be enough to stop the poisoning of this planet for good? Would it matter how we treated this planet? It was going to collapse anyway. These are probably some of the questions that a normal human being is likely to pose, however, one is becoming increasingly compelled to experience these events on an almost constant basis.
The Life of Chuck does not seek to explain what is causing the apocalypse, instead it urges the audience to contemplate what they would do in the final moments of their lives.
As it is common, given that it is a Stephen King novella, some elements of fantasy and supernatural do come into play. In particular, an attic which was under lock and key and which Chuck’s grandfather (Mark Hamill) warns him from ever going to.
Those who enter it seem to be able to see what will happen in the future. What Chuck’s grandfather does tell him is that the hardest thing waiting is in one’s life. But that is all we have. We all invariably are looking forward to some end of life which may either be due to old age or this planet finally getting exhausted or any other reason. We are all waiting.
One can see this period of waiting not as a YYYY but as a period where we should love life itself too. To raise our hands to the pretty girl who invites us to dance and never glance over our shoulders. To get completely obsessed with whatever brings happiness. The Life of Chuck is wonderful, one of the many jewels in Flanagan’s crown and, yes, it is a dance that warrants to be accepted.
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- Genre: Drama, Fantasy, horror, Sci-fic
- Country: United States
- Director: Mike Flanagan
- Cast: Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Tom Hiddleston
