Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone MSC
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A life-affirming, genre-bending story about three chapters in the life of an ordinary man named Charles Krantz.
Chuck is a popular name, especially in the US, and it calls to mind someone amiable, ordinary, a next-door neighbour type… So, we can expect that the life of Chuck would be nice and amiable. And, in many ways it is. But, in the eyes of America’s most prolific writer, Stephen King, always considered a master of horror stories, it could be anybody, or Anybody. Which means that Chuck is being set up as an Everyman Figure. Chuck, or a variation on him could be any of us – men or women. King published this short story in 2020 – the initial year of the pandemic.
Writer-director, Mike Flanagan (who directed film versions of King’s Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and the fascinating Catholic-themed miniseries, Midnight Mass) has adapted the story in ways audiences who have not read the story, would be surprised. (For any audiences who intend to see Life of Chuck and knows nothing about it, best to stop here and read reviews after your own experience.)
In fact, the film tells its story in reverse, in three acts. Act three starts ordinarily enough, at school, with a sympathetic teacher (Ejiofor). But, soon we move into a kind of apocalyptic, end of the world scenario, with news of disasters such as California North lapsing into the sea, but highlighted in a suburban kind of way by the loss of wifi, interruptions to television programs, the electricity going out, sinkholes in the streets, cars abandoned, forlorn people walking home alone. All this is alarming, but quietly communicated, especially by conversations of hapless people facing a diminishing future. However, suddenly lit up in all the windows of houses and buildings, images of Chuck, messages of thanks for his 39 years. So, where is King going from here?
Act two steps back in time, and we meet Chuck, quiet-mannered, well dressed in his suit, an accountant at a conference, and played by Tom Hiddleston (whom many remember as Loki). In fact, this is a brief sequence in the narrative that makes an extraordinary impact: dancing in the street. A young drummer sets up her instruments in the town square, Chuck walks along, stops, looks, listens to the beat and one of the most joyous intense sequences on film follows. And Chuck is joined by a disappointed young woman whose boyfriend has suddenly cut her off. A growing crowd shares this increasing joy.
Many directors have used the theme of the Dance of Life – and this is a wonderful example. The theme of the end of the world is put on the back burner as we go back to Chuck’s childhood, accidental death of his parents and unborn sister, cared for by his grandparents, a charmingly dancing Mia Sara, a wonderful portrait of a crabby old man, a monologue which will be valued by anybody devoted to mathematics, and played by Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill, almost 50 years since Star Wars.
The story of young Chuck is a wonderful experience with the lively performance by Benjamin Pajak, who grieves, listens to his grandfather, shares some mysterious ghostly experiences, but, it is revealed, at school is where he learned to dance – and a kind of prom night dance sequence which again is exhilarating.
So, who is Chuck? Could be any of us. And while he is a white American male, there is a range of multi-ethnic characters for multicultural experiences including the African-American drummer. And, what is Chuck’s life telling us – a quotation from Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’ he heard at school, ‘I contain multitudes’. So, for Every Man and Every Woman, there can be an extraordinary vitality of life. And, a realisation that life comes to an end, as the world will come to an end (in a realism aspect of this tale telling or in Chuck’s inner consciousness?).
Generally, audiences have appreciated The Life of Chuck, a number of critics dismissing its sentiment and what they see as superficial observations. But, most will find the opening sequence arresting, arousing curiosity, and, as the film goes on, especially with the exuberance and dances of life, the possibilities for deeper life reflections.
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