Rent The Life of Chuck (2024)

Starts well, goes nowhere - The Life of Chuck review by Alphaville

A film of 3 acts, each one set earlier in time. The first act is an interesting fantasy set at the end of the world as we know it (there are even exploding planets). It’s not overly woke and it does make you want to know more. Unfortunately there will be no explanation and there’s barely any connection with acts 2 and 3, which follow the day-to-day life of a different character (the eponymous Chuck). Even worse, act 2 is mainly an overlong street dance, and act 3 also has a lot of pointless dancing in it. Probably more interesting is the set of Extras, where the cast make failed attempts to explain what it’s all about. Something to do with isn’t life wonderful etc. Still, it’s well made and keeps you watching, even if it’s ultimately pointless. They should have stuck with act 1 and followed it through.

Life’s a Rewind… Until the Tape Runs Out - The Life of Chuck review by griggs

Life doesn’t usually come with a rewind button, but here it does—and under Mike Flanagan’s assured direction, the effect is oddly exhilarating. We start at the end, with the world folding in on itself, before moving backwards through moments of street-dancing abandon and into the wide-eyed promise of childhood. It’s a story about horizons: how they narrow with age, then widen again as memory unspools in reverse.

Flanagan steers this tricky structure with a light but deliberate touch, balancing warmth and melancholy without tipping into sentimentality. The apocalyptic opening plays like the shutting-down of a private universe, each scene selling off another fragment of the life lived within. The middle act, brimming with defiance in the face of decline, has a spontaneity that feels both joyous and fragile.

By the time we reach the beginning, the reverse journey feels less like an ending than a sly reminder: life’s possibilities—real or imagined—are as vast as we allow them to be, until they aren’t. Flanagan turns what could have been a gimmick into a poignant meditation on mortality, perspective, and the strange comfort of seeing it all in reverse.

Strange Fantasy Story - The Life of Chuck review by GI

A bizarre and somewhat enigmatic film from a Stephen King short story and I suspect not one of his best. It feels like a story half baked with ideas that are unfulfilled as if the author and latterly the director of the film, Mike Flanagan have struggled to nail down. It leaves the film with a feeling of vague disappointment. It's a difficult narrative to summarise but it's a film divided into three acts which are shown in reverse order. Act 3 mostly follows a humble high school teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in a small US town as the world begins to crumble, first with California falling into the sea, then the internet going down and it seems the end of the world is nigh. Annoyingly for the teacher despite the potential end of humanity the town has a series of posters and messages pop up that permeate through the terrifying news and simply announce congratulations to Charles 'Chuck' Krantz for 39 years. No-one seems to know who Chuck is or what he's achieved but it's soon made clear he's a nobody who is dying. This then gives the film its structure as a study of how one man's life holds a universe unique to him and at his death that universe is destroyed. Acts 2 and 1 show Chuck's earlier years principally around his love of dancing and his relationship with his grandparents. The film is sort of celebrating life as uniquely wonderful for each individual. There's a magical vibe to it and yet it feels abstract and incomplete. Tom Hiddleston plays the adult Chuck although he only has about 20 minutes of screen time and his role is mainly centred around a big dance number. Mark Hamill costars as his grandfather who hides a secret in his old house (another vague mystery that is a bit of a let down). This is a film that tries for that feel good thing that better films have created with more assuredness such Field Of Dreams (1989) or The Truman Show (1998). I wasn't convinced by it, it has some interesting moments but as a whole it lacks depth.