Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: Based on Stephen King’s 2020 novella of the same name, “The Life of Chuck,” a new science fiction drama starring Tom Hiddleston now playing in theatres, begins as an apocalyptic drama but, by the film’s end, reveals itself to be a life-affirming look at the way we embrace the fleeting experience of life.

CAST: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, Matthew Lillard and Mark Hamill. Written and directed by Mike Flanagan.

REVIEW: Many people die in “The Life of Chuck,” the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Young people, middle-aged people, old people. In fact, by the end of the film’s opening half hour, it’s suggested that everyone is a goner. And still, the film, adapted from a Stephen King novella of the same name, manages to be tearily life affirming in its compact hour and 45-minute run time.

Structurally “The Life of Chuck” is challenging, divided into three stand-alone, but related pieces.

It begins at the end with Act 3. Chiwetel Ejiofor is Marty, high school teacher and ex-husband of Felicia (Karen Gillan). As the world crumbles around them—California falls into the sea, the internet is gone, earthquakes and wildfires are ravaging most of the planet and entire species of birds and fish disappear overnight—they struggle to understand the billboards and TV ads that thank Charles “Chuck” Krantz for “39 Great Years” that suddenly appear everywhere. “It’s all Krantz all the time,” Marty says. “Anyone know who he is?”

Act 2 focuses on Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) adult life, including an afternoon spent dancing with a stranger in public.

Act 1 ties the segments together with a look at Chuck as a youngster and his introduction to the vagaries of life. “You contain multitudes,” says his teacher, placing her hands on either side of his head. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

“The Life of Chuck” is an eclectic film with an odd upside-down presentation, but its themes are anything but strange. A chronical of a life’s journey, it reveals, like Amanda Marshall sang, that everybody, even an “ordinary” accountant like Chuck, has “a story that’ll break your heart.”

A mix of memories, dance and family bonds paint an empathetic portrait of an everyman who, as Walt Whitman said, “contains multitudes.” Chuck is a surrogate for all of us, a microcosm of the inner universe of experience, emotions, and connection that give color to all our lives. And while the movie grapples with mortality, it’s not a downer. Instead, it’s a vibrant testament to the small moments that make up a life, and how small gestures can imprint on those around you.

Once you get acclimatized to the wonky backwards structure, director Mike Flanagan’s abstract commentary on life and legacy gels and the appreciation of life, even in the face of death, becomes clear. It’s sentimental, but never syrupy. It’s heartfelt but not overbearing. It is just like the character of Chuck: likable, multi-layered and nuanced.