Rob Reviews "The Life of Chuck"

Mike Flanagan adapts and directs a novella from the collection If it Bleeds by Stephen King.

Seems like this is an A24 branding away from being the complete package.  But it is SO much more than that.

The Life of Chuck is one of those films that while brilliant on so many levels may not get the love it truly deserves.  When the IMDb description is so high-level it’s closer to the moon than the earth, that is one thing.  When the film itself starts with “Act Three,” I knew I was in for something out of the ordinary.  The Chuck in question is played by multiple actors (hence the name), namely Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, and Benjamine Pajak.  As can be assumed, this is told in reverse, but not in a Memento kind of way.  And not really in any kind of way.

The difficulty in reviewing a film like this is that I have to avoid going too far into the story itself because I don’t want to spoil ANY of this for you.  Just know that it is FANTASTIC.  There is a supporting cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillian, Mia Sara, Mark Hamill, Carl Lumbly, David Dastmalchian, Harvey Guillen, and Matthew Lillard who all get their moment while the overall arch of just who Chuck is stays in balance with other storylines that may (or may not) be directly affected by his.  Spending the first third of this film just trying to figure out what the heck is actually going on is part of its charm, especially for a guy like me who LOVES that kind of thing.  There are so many context clues that I didn’t realize were context clues until much later in The Life of Chuck made it that much more amazing as the story unfolded.  All the way up until the final credits rolled, I was guessing the things I had seen and the conclusions I was jumping to on a level that rivals even the best episodes of shows like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits.  Not necessarily in a Big Fish kind of way, but I can see it from here.  There is a poetry to the storytelling that Flanagan seems to get when it comes to King’s material (remember that he is the guy who handled Doctor Sleep) that full-on delivers here, and the narration of the story delivered by Nick Offerman hammers it home that much more.

This is definitely the kind of film I want to watch again to find out what I missed the first time.  Other films have tried on this level but did not motivate me to do so in the way this one does.  I feel like I caught quite a bit of it, but I am still not sure I caught all of it.  I don’t know if I could say it must be seen in a theater, but I am also saying not to give the studio your money on this one.  I am definitely intrigued to see where The Life of Chuck winds up at the end of this year, because right now, I’ll be talking about it then.