The Life of Chuck

There is a concept here about the truth: we live, and then we die, and because I know it's a movie based on a story by Stevn King it has me asking the question: which am I more afrriad of?

I know the ambiguous trailer did not seem like anything you would expect from a Steven King movie, but what I got is exactly why this dude is The Master of Horror.

Maybe I am reading too much into a film, possibly influenced far greater by Mike Flanagan's filmmaking, yet the emotion I felt for this movie was deep.

That's the brilliance of this movie, I felt something at the end, and it made me think, and it was beautiful for that.

It's everything I expected from a movie/

I went into The Life of Chuck knowing nothing about it other than it being a Stephen King novella.

I assumed the movie was going to be horror, and I was so wrong, in the best way. Mike Flanagan was a director I was unfamiliar with as well - so my expectations were really empty.

That being said - The Life of Chuck took the beats of what makes a great horror film - fleshed out and relatable characters with a unique and mysterious situation to put them in.

I want to leave my critique relatively vague as I believe the hook of the film works best going in without knowing much.

I left the film feeling a mix of joy and melancholy and appreciated the artistry that brought me there.

I do recommend.

It honestly boggles my mind how I kept reading about how this movie was bombing at the box office, when it clearly was very poorly marketed. It was two weeks after its "wide" release before it finally showed up to our local art house/second run movie theater. The chain multiplexes gave it a complete miss.

Mike Flanagan is a very talented screenwriter and director and this was possibly Stephen King's most sentimental work. And there's two INCREDIBLE dance scenes. The result is completely human, uplifting film.

There is some anxiety inducing story in the start of the film, but it is not a horror film by any measure. King is also very good with general fiction too, after all.

This movie will stick with you for awhile. Hours after my viewing, I was still thinking about it (and tearing up.)

Adapting Stephen King to the screen is a tricky proposition and has rarely been successful. With the exception of Carrie (the original Brian DePalma is a horror classic) and possibly Kubrick s The Shining (which gets better with age and when looked at through an auteur's lens) the only successful adaptations IMHO have been his short stories and novellas (The Body/Stand By Me and Shawshank come immediately to mind). Life of Chuck falls into the latter category. In addition to being well written and acted, the telling of the story in reverse is generally difficult, and in this outing is surprisingly effective. And it's fun finding the Easter Eggs in the third part of the movie that explains much of the action in the first part.

I really liked this, though I fear it will be divisive. Nonlinear (or counter linear?) storytelling is not everyone's cup of tea. My husband hated it until I told him it's a Mike Flanagan movie (we're fans) and it then made sense. As mentioned, well acted. Well written. Well directed. Prettily photographed. The end of the first portion is a surprise (I will not give it away) that ties all three parts together.

IMO it's a worthwhile two hours spent in the dark with a room full of strangers.

I so very much enjoy Tom Hiddleston in films. Karen Gillan is also a treat to watch in selected films. The rest of the cast is worth more than an honorable mention alone, as many familiar faces grace the screen (especially toward the beginning of the film). Lastly, I tend to love this 'type' of movie. I can't give too much away without using a spoiler tag, but if you watch the interview(s) with the cast featured here on IMDB, you'll know what "type" I am referring to. I wonder if I can get away with 'apocalyptic', since that is a word straight from one of these interviews.

That said ... it was a bit of a letdown for me.

The beginning was slow, but it was good. It built an expectancy toward so much more and a feeling that it was going to get so much better. Sadly, that was never fully realized or delivered.

Beginning in the second act, the film definitely starts to bog down and suffers from side or follow-up scenes that are just way too long and a bit far-fetched. The narration, too, is used far too often to the point of it just about verging on annoying.

By the third act, when they begin to introduce what is supposed to be the point of the entire thing, it has already been too bogged down by too much of not enough - if that makes sense. While the child actor is adorable and does so well, here too the movie just drags.

Moreover, everything is so overly-EXPLAINED. It's kind of like Flanagan did not trust the audience to understand what was happening, so either the narrator or characters went to great lengths to explain every detail. Well, while some may disagree, I believe audiences are more intelligent than this film gives them (us) credit for.

Sorry Mike Flanagan fans, but this is the third time I have been let down by one of his offerings. :(