A feel-good Stephen King Story
Adapted from the similarly titled Stephen King novella from the collection “If It Bleeds,” “The Life of Chuck” has to be the best feel-good downer of a film – maybe ever. It’s got everything, from a mysterious apocalyptical event to a rigorous dance number. Wang Chung shoehorns its way into the action too. (The band has little to do with the dance number, though it may have been the inspiration.)
“Chuck” unfolds in three acts told in reverse. In Act III, “Thanks Chuck,” small-town schoolteacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tries to reconnect with his ex-wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan), as the world implodes in small, eerie waves. Traffic backs up, technology goes on the fritz and the busy hospital where Felicia works is suddenly empty one day. Then glowing billboards thanking Chuck “for 39 great years” start popping up everywhere with the bespectacled mug of a guy who looks like a meek, mild local TV host. He’s the Chuck of the title, played by Tom Hiddleston – more commonly known as Loki in the Marvel Universe and a Bond-esque presence in “The Night Manager” streaming series. Things get weird and even more Chucky when the power goes out and his glowing visage starts projecting from the windows of the houses in Felicia’s neighborhood.
Act II is that killer dance number, in which Chuck, whom we learn is an ace accountant replete with a billowing briefcase, tightly knotted tie and drab, well-fitted suit, exits a client session in a random city square where a drum soloist (true-life drummer and Berklee College of Music grad Taylor Gordon, aka The Pocket Queen) is setting up to busk. The voice-over narration by Nick Offerman (the president in “Civil War”) lends us insight into the characters and their POVs. Our drummer in this case sees a nondescript man and decides to mirror her image of him in a beat.
Chuck is caught instantly by the rhythm, loses the briefcase and before you know it, he’s moonwalking across the pavilion and swing dancing with a random woman (Annalise Basso) he pulls from the encircling crowd. It’s six minutes of infectious, foot-tapping adrenaline that’s choreographed tautly (by Mandy Moore, “Dancing With the Stars”) with impeccable beats by Gordon, who’s so clearly in the pocket.
In a bit of a preamble we learn that Basso’s Janice has just been dumped via text, and the dance becomes a form of liberation or vindication. For Chuck, not so much, as he remains aloof and mysterious – where’s his home, does he come here often, what makes him billboard-worthy, and what about that troubling cough we notice when the drummer doles out a portion of her busker take to Janice and Chuck?
We get most of those answers in Act I, in which we met the young Chuck, orphaned and raised by his grandparents (Mia Sara and Mark Hamill, who knocks it out of the park as the boozy and slightly kooky grandpa) in an old New England Victorian house where access to the attic is kept under double lock and key – this is a Stephen King story, people, you’ve got to have a place to “not go in!”
It’s grandma, a big pot of marinara and Wang Chung that get Chuck swiveling his hips. At school the undersized, sixth-grade Chuck (played by Benjamin Pajak) joins the dance club and because of his inherent skill and love of dance gets paired with an older, elegantly angular eighth-grader named Cat McCoy (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, bringing a nice balance of stunning command and compassion to the part). Chuck has a crush on the much taller Cat, but she’s got a beau.
Act I provides no giant connective leaps in, but there are small bits that help to fill out the enigmatic corners of the earlier acts in soulful wisps. Directed by Mike Flanagan, who’s been down the King path with “Doctor Sleep” (2019) – the follow-up to “The Shining” (1980) – and will do so again next year with a redo of “Carrie” as a television series, “The Life of Chuck” is an emotionally driven experience that resonates in universal “multitudes.” As far as King on film goes, “Chuck” is right up there with “The Shining,” Brian DePalma’s original “Carrie” (1976) and “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994). In texture and ability to affect, it’s closest to that last entry, which garnered seven Oscar nods.
In King’s novella, the Act II dance scene is supposed to take place in downtown Boston, and the quaint New England burb of Chuck’s upbringing is clearly modeled after King’s Maine or mid-Massachusetts. The truth is – and you’ll notice – it was shot in Alabama, where palmlike trees surround the city square. It pulls you out some, but it’s a minor tug that gets blasted away easily by Gordon’s beats.
Hiddleston, stately and vulnerable as Chuck, centers the film, but “Life of” is a true ensemble piece, with the inspired casting bolstered by Shaggy-portrayer Matthew Lillard and an avuncular Carl Lumbly as townsfolk Marty encounters on his way to his ex-wife’s house. “Chuck” is a small, tight film that fills you in surprising and big ways.
For What it's Worth 
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