PalCinema Review: The Life of Chuck
June 19, 2025
FILM: THE LIFE OF CHUCK
DIRECTED BY: MIKE FLANAGAN
STARRING: TOM HIDDLESTON, BENJAMIN PAJAK, JACOB TREMBLAY
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Life of Chuck, surprised many by winning the audience award which typically suggests a film is a fan favorite and will go on to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. However, this time it was held back almost a year for a questionable spring release. Perhaps the distributor felt it didn’t have such award chances as it is a structurally nontraditional and thematically unusual work based on a novella by Stephen King. Whether it will have any such Oscar hopes for the next award season is unknown. It’s the kind of film that will leave some confused and others inspired.
The narrative begins in chapter three when all hell is breaking loose on earth. Earthquakes, floods, and fires are plaguing the planet and (Uh-Oh!) television and the internet go down. It appears the world as we know it is ending. People are downtrodden and seemingly ready for the inevitable. It’s eerie to think that the film was made before our current social and political breakdowns, before people were thinking this might really be our end. (Sorry for the pessimism but that’s how the film initially feels.) Then, signs start appearing thanking Chuck Krantz for “39 great years.” Who is Chuck and why is he being thanked? Some of the locals don’t even know.
The tone of this first sequence feels a bit like an episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. The end of it is also reminiscent of the final scenes of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia which finds the planet on the brink of colliding with another, signaling the end of civilization.
Then the story cuts backwards to chapter two. We are introduced to a few characters as they enter a town square. Chuck, an accountant, arrives and begins a highly spirited dance to the beat of a young woman’s drums. The scene feels like an old time musical number with exciting choreography and a crowd cheering Chuck and another dancer on. Is the film suggesting that even though the world and our lives will end we have to celebrate the great joys from arts such as music and dance?
When the film cuts to another chapter, this time when Chuck is child, we finally learn something about him and his background. He’s living with his grandparents played by Mark Hamill and Mia Sara. They live in an old Victorian home with a mysterious locked copula on the top floor. The primary function of this sequence though is to provide details as to Chuck’s life and his introduction to dance by his grandmother. He becomes a hit in school but grandpa pushes the importance of solving math problems instead. It is partially a conflict between dance and accounting or, more generally, art vs. logic.
How all of this comes together is a bit perplexing. The film seems to be philosophizing questions about why God made a world which is ultimately doomed. These are also contrasted with astronomer Carl Sagan exploring the expansive universe which may be more logical to contemplate but also rather imaginative, thus riding the art vs. logic continuum. Somehow director/writer Mike Flanagan and Stephen King seem to be suggesting that death and the end of the world are inevitable yet until that time we should embrace the joys of life. In that sense, the film has a more uplifting ending than it would have had if all we got was a final shot of life on earth. I suspect this storytelling decision might have contributed to why the film received such an enthusiastic response in Toronto.
There is also some great talent on board here. Tom Hiddleston is the older Chuck and his dance number is one for the ages. It’s the kind of number that will be shown in Oscar clips and in any history of the movies with its love of big, flashy, thrilling dance numbers. Benjamin Pajak plays the very enthusiastic and energetic young Chuck as he makes his initial way on the school dancefloor. He’s a lot of fun to watch.
Mark Hamill deserves a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for playing grandpa Albie Krantz. It’s a role that will be shocking to anyone who only knows him as Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars films. He showcases multiple layers with a gruff, weathered exterior. Nick Offerman serves as the narrator who effectively helps to move the story forward.
I don’t know that The Life of Chuck will have the kind of success that other Toronto audience winners have had (Green Book, American Fiction, The Fabelmans, Belfast, Nomadland, Jojo Rabbit, La La Land, etc. ) but there is something very intriguing and original about the film that might make it one that people slowly latch onto over time. The story and its sci fi/fantasy elements feel, and this may be stretching it a bit, at one with films such as A Christmas Carol, The Wizard of Oz, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Maybe because it originated as a novella and still has the magic of a tall tale audiences will be forever intrigued by it. Maybe. I enjoyed it enough even if I’m not quite sure what I experienced.
The Life of Chuck is currently playing in theaters.
Have you seen the film? I’d love to hear your thoughts! If not, does this film interest you?
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It got billed as “It’s a wonderful life for our times”
- that alone made me think it was overshooting its shot. Like in the way of pomposity (see how I did that?)
Thanks for this. I was moved by the story in its original form, and this is the only in-theaters release I'm even a little interested in seeing at the moment.