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THE LIFE OF CHUCK
Director: Mike Flanagan Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Cody Flanagan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillen, Mark Hamill, Mia Sara, Carl Lumbly, Annalise Basso, Taylor Gordon, Matthew Lillard, Samantha Sloyan, Violet McGraw, David Dastmalchian, Q'orianka Kilcher, the voice of Nick Offerman MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:50 Release Date: 6/6/25 (limited); 6/13/25 (wide) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 5, 2025 If—as the man said—life can only be understood backwards, writer/director Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck should make complete sense. After all, it begins with the third act of the story, but what and whose story is this meant to be? By the end of the introduction, we know that much, but we also have contemplated and understand so much more about this mystery man, the life he may have lived, the world, the universe, time, and, perhaps most bluntly of all, how every story will end in the same way. That Flanagan's screenplay begins, as does the Stephen King novella upon which it is based, with the finale is far from a comforting thought, but that's the strange and moving beauty of this film. King's name, of course, instinctually brings up notions of horror and dread, and there are plenty of those to be found in this tale, from its apocalyptic opening chapter to the fatalistic one that brings the film to a close, while also showing us the real beginning of the life of its main character. This may make Flanagan's film sound like a puzzle to be examined, considered, and assembled after turning around its various pieces in the mind at every conceivable angle. In a way, it is that. In another, it most certainly isn't. The structure of the narrative is straightforward, albeit with its three chapters told in reverse order, but its meaning is slightly more elusive than that. We get the basics, obviously, because it is essentially a biographical account of one man, whose life superficially doesn't appear too complicated or, for all the big ideas that are presented throughout this ambitious story, lived in a particularly grandiose way. This man, then, could be any one of us. Whose life, after all, is all that complex or, for all the dreams and big plans each of us may possess for some ideal life, lived in some grand, earth-shattering way? All of us live the best we can, and that is, in the only way that matters, the best we can hope to achieve. Most films don't even scratch the surface of such ideas, but this one, in its inherently imprecise—because life is messy and rarely, if ever, understood, either backwards or forwards—but precisely limited narrative, exists in and with them. It begins as a tragedy on a scale we cannot fathom, only for the story to reveal that it's really something we all know. It ends with some kind of hope that everything we have seen and every detail that has gone unwitnessed between these chapters did, indeed, mean something. The story eventually belongs to the man of the title, who appears and is mentioned throughout that opening act in various pieces of advertising. He's Chuck (Tom Hiddleston), who works at a local bank and apparently is retiring after 39 years, but all anyone knows of him, it seems, is that his face is on billboards and TV commercials, his name is in a radio ad thanking him for that time, and he must have meant something to enough people to earn this sort of recognition. Seeing and hearing those ads are schoolteacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurse Felicia (Karen Gillan), who were once married and now find themselves reconnecting when the internet starts failing, an earthquake sends a chunk of California into the ocean, and other disasters begin occurring around the globe. Their story unfolds with a palpable sense of doom, as Marty puts the entire, relatively miniscule history of humanity into the context of a cosmic calendar and everyone tries to prepare themselves for an end that seems to be inevitable, as well as imminent. All the while, Chuck's mostly smiling face is there, but who is this man, apart from being involved in accounting? What's fascinating about Flanagan's film is how this man is omnipresent within the story, even when he appears almost completely detached from the end-the-world nightmare of the first act, but how much of an enigma he remains. To be clear, the first chapter is about Chuck in a manner that cannot be spoken, because the gradual realization of what he means to the world puts that already-terrifying and sobering vision of an apocalypse into an entirely different context. By the end of that section, we know the man's mind, memory, and imagination in a way that almost makes some kind of personal history irrelevant. We get some of it anyway in the proceeding two chapters. The first of them also doesn't seem to be about Chuck, who's on a work vacation to attend a conference, and, by chance, meets a drummer (played by Taylor Gordon), performing for tips on the sidewalk, and a lovely redhead (played by Annalise Basso), who was just dumped by a boyfriend via an apathetic text message. Nick Offerman's plainly spoken but soothing voice, by the way, provides a running narration that might be omniscient or could be some part of Chuck's mind, attempting to remember and make sense of these little details and stories that, in the big picture, might not mean very little. Because of the power of that opening chapter, though, we know the rest of these moments mean everything to Chuck, or else, why would his story unfold in this particular way? In the middle chapter, Chuck and the red-haired woman dance for no other reason than that the percussion moves them to do so. The sequence exists in a similar way, too—just a spontaneous celebration of dance, momentary connection, and the joy of, as we learn in the next section, doing what one loves, even if life has made one forget that thing and it does only exist for a brief moment in time. Flanagan's camera and the rhythm of the editing move along with the dance, as if the entire film also is too swept up in it to care about whatever story it's supposed to be telling. The final—and, again, chronologically first—act relates Chuck's life as a kid (played by Cody Flanagan and Benjamin Pajak), being raised by his grandparents (played by Mark Hamill and a luminous Mia Sara), and a teenager (played by Jacob Tremblay). It explains some things, such as how the man is such a talented dancer, and tells an almost-isolated tale that feels the most like traditional King here (There's a riddle in the cupola of an old Victorian house that needs to be solved but probably shouldn't be learned), but is that enough? Can a single part of a person define that person's existence? If that—as the whole course of the story suggest—is what Chuck wants, why shouldn't it? Those questions remain at the end of The Life of Chuck, and why shouldn't they, either? This is a boldly beautiful and haunting film in which every answer about its narrative only raises more questions about the beginning and end of life, as well as everything in between. Copyright © 2025 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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