The Reel Review
The life of Chuck Krantz is told in reverse chronological order, starting with his death from a brain tumor, then backtracking to the formative moments that shaped his 39-year life. Tom Hiddleston leads an ensemble cast in this fantasy drama from writer/director Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House) based on the Stephen King 2020 novella.
The Life of Chuck is an unconventional film that uses the defining joys and sorrows in Chuck’s life to illicit personal memories and feelings within the mind of the viewer. The first act is intentionally confusing, disorienting even, in which the world appears to be ending, only to reveal that it is Chuck’s mind – his universe – that is dying. Characters in the first act reappear later in the film, gradually revealing their impact on Chuck’s life.
This unconventional approach will frustrate those viewers accustomed to a more straightforward story, but for the majority, it will almost invariably cause a flood of emotions (and lots of tears), thanks to impactful performances from Hiddleston, Mia Sara, Jacob Tremblay (Wonder) as the young Chuck, Karen Gillan and Mark Hamill. To say more would spoil it – but that ending, a reminder of preciousness of life, will haunt you.
REEL FACTS
• Mia Sara, who was 17 when she appeared as Ferris’ girlfriend Sloane in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, came out of retirement from acting to appear in The Life of Chuck after seeing Mike Flanagan’s 2021 miniseries Midnight Mass.
• Kate Siegel, Mike Flanagan’s wife and frequent collaborator, appears in the film as Miss Richards, Chuck’s teacher who helps him embrace the possibility of being more than just one thing expected of him.
• The Life of Chuck writer/director Mike Flanagan has a cameo as a funeral mourner in one scene in the film, which was filmed in and around Mobile, Alabama.
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