The Life Of Chuck is cinema’s next cult hit

The works of Stephen King are a well that Hollywood has returned to time and time again.

Some of the most iconic films in the horror genre are adaptations of King’s work – Carrie, The Shining, Misery, and It all spring to mind – but King’s less horror-tinged works have also served as inspiration for Hollywood over the years.

Films like The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and The Green Mile are King adaptations that make for Hollywood gold, and The Life Of Chuck is right up there.

The 2020 King novella If It Bleeds is a collection of works by King, and Life Of Chuck sees King return to the same well that spawned Shawshank, Stand By Me and Green Mile; the oddly hopeful, ultimately beautiful and bittersweet kind.

Life Of Chuck is a difficult film to market (at least if the film’s box office performance in the States is anything to go by), but the film is deceptively simple; it follows the story of a man named Chuck Kranz and three distinct chapters in his life.

The film is told in reverse order; the film starts later in Chuck’s life, and it follows him from middle age to childhood.

It’s a strange, but effective way to frame the film, and it ultimately works.

Much like Shawshank or Green Mile, there is this sense of hope in the face of adversity that makes this film appeal to just about anyone.

The choice to tell the film in reverse isn’t a bold Godard-style artistic choice; there is a narrative justification for it, and it works.

Starting at the end of the story means that there is a mystery element to the film; you know just as much about Chuck as the other characters in the film do. 

The film’s first segment is the strongest, with the characters in the dark about who exactly Chuck is, while the world itself is falling apart.

The first segment sees people try to cope with the world as we know it is slowly fading away and heading towards an uncertain end.

Segment two sees Chuck have a chance encounter with a busker and a street dancer, the film’s most joyous and triumphant moment, and segment three is when the film really nails the life-affirming tone with its exploration of how a younger person navigates grief and memory.

For the second week in a row, we are reviewing a film that feels like a homage to the films of Peter Weir.

Weir’s film prior to The Truman Show, 1993’s Fearless, is perhaps the greatest depiction of grief and anxiety ever put to the screen. 

In that film, Jeff Bridges plays the survivor of a devastating plane crash and encounters fellow survivors or people who were touched by the tragedy.

Fearless captures this naturalistic, and one would say, Irish way of looking at death, and it is rare to see that applied through the lens of American cinema.

The film is arguably Weir and Bridges’ finest hours; it walks right up to the line of being overly sentimental and saccharine, and Life Of Chuck pulls off the same trick.

There is a sense of both finality and totality at the heart of the film.

Owing to the episodic nature of the film, the film has a different cast in each segment; in the first segment, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillian play a divorced couple who reconcile as the end draws near, Tom Hiddleston is the star of the films second segment, while the third segment has Mark Hamill and Mia Sara deliver career-best work as Chuck’s grandparents.

The episodic nature of the film links up nicely with the film’s literary roots; a lot of this is down to writer/director Mike Flanagan, who has quietly made a name for himself as one of the best voices working in horror today.

Flanagan is best known for his Netflix hits The Haunting Of Hill House and The Fall Of The House Of Usher, as well as his 2019 film Doctor Sleep.

Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game are great indicators that Flanagan is a fantastic conveyer of the classic King style of horror, and Life Of Chuck shows that Flanagan isn’t just a horror guy; he can make a “real” movie too.

Director Frank Darabont famously got his start writing a Freddy Krueger movie as well as a remake of The Blob in the 1980s before making Shawshank and Green Mile.

There must be something about being involved in horror that makes horror guys strong humanist directors.

The fact that The Shawshank Redemption is based on a Stephen King novella is one of those great pop culture trivia stories, but the film and novella are reminders that King isn’t just the king of scares; he knows how to write a beautiful humanist story, too.

It is for this reason that we predict that Life Of Chuck will do OK business in cinemas, but will really pick up a life of its own once it hits streaming or gets shown on TV every other Saturday night, ala Shawshank.

There is a wonderful, life-affirming heart at the core of this film that makes it a film anyone can relate to; young, old, frequent Letterboxd user, person who only sees films in 20-minute snippets on TV, regular IFI attendee or reality TV show binger.

As the summer blockbuster season draws to a close and we head into awards season, it’s a shame that Life Of Chuck is likely to be left out of the conversation by the time Oscar rolls into town early next year, and this film will likely struggle to find an audience commercially.

In his wonderful documentary about Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger last year, Martin Scorsese said that The Canterbury Tales failed commercially because it was too elusive and obscure for commercial audiences; it only found its audience after the fact and is now regarded as one of the duo’s best.

It’s easy to see Life Of Chuck having a similar cultural half-life.

The timeless nature of this film, and the fact that it can and will appeal to just about anyone, means this film will have a long sting in its tail.

No, Life Of Chuck doesn’t have the popcorn factor of something like Superman or F1, nor does it command the same Friday night buzz as a film like Weapons.

What this film does have, however, is longevity.

Like Shawshank before it, it will lose the box office battle, but it will most certainly win the word-of-mouth war.