‘I will live my life until my life runs out...’
Some of Stephen King’s most beloved film adaptations are the ones that stray furthest from the horror genre for which he is most famous. The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand by Me… these are arguably some of King’s most beloved works, and while The Life of Chuck, the latest King adaptation to hit cinemas, doesn’t quite scale the heights of the aforementioned, it’s definitely one of the better King adaptations of the 21st century…
Before I get into the plot, I can’t stress enough that the best way to enjoy The Life of Chuck is by going into it knowing as little as possible. I hadn’t read the novella upon which the film is based (it appears in King’s novella collection , If It Bleeds), nor had I seen the trailer, and this meant that when a certain something happens, it had the largest possible impact. Anyway, the first section of the film is ostensibly about two people reuniting at the end of the world. School teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan) put old differences aside when California starts crumbling into the sea. Things get weird when some guy called Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) starts appearing on billboards all over the city.
Told in reverse chronological order, The Life of Chuck plays with narrative and structure in a way that never feels like a gimmick or something that is too smart for its own good. While the final two segments don’t quite match the juxtaposition of whimsy and rising dread achieved in the first section, there are still great moments dotted throughout, not least in the form of several wonderful cameos. While I won’t spoil them here, I will say that I could watch Matthew Lillard play the character he portrays here for hours and never get bored. Man, I love that guy.
Writer-director Mike Flanagan has form in the Kingiverse having already directed Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, and if his mooted adaptation of The Dark Tower series ever sees the light of day, I’m confident that based on this film and his previous dalliances with King, that my beloved gunslinger will be in safe hands. His patented ‘Flanalogues’ are present and correct here, and while he veers a little too far into sentimentality at times, when he aims for profundity, he mostly hits the mark, something that is difficult to do without succumbing to schmaltz.
The Life of Chuck caused a stir when it won the People’s Choice award at the Toronto International Film Festival (an accolade that often points towards Oscar nominations), and while a disappointing box office return has stalled the film’s momentum somewhat, you can imagine this becoming a word-of-mouth hit in the same way that Shawshank was. And it deserves to be. It is, after all, perhaps Flanagan’s most accomplished work.
