After I watched The Life of Chuck, I noticed the Kanopy page for it directing me towards Collateral Beauty, a movie I have hated, sight unseen, ever since it came out. I mostly liked The Life of Chuck, though. Still, I could see how the two could ostensibly fit in the same category—sentimental glurge, prejudicially. Which made me wonder: what’s the difference between glurge I like and glurge I don’t? What do I think The Life of Chuck does right?
It does, for the record, do plenty wrong. It cannot get out of its own way to save its life, constantly nudging you to look over there and notice that. Nick Offerman’s voiceover, though occasionally brilliant, crowds in too often and characterizes the action too aggressively. Big, triumphant emotional scenes go down a little too smoothly, without the friction that might make them feel more real. Nothing here is necessarily all that profound or all that new, and the newer part is spelled out too obviously, with the script not letting go of your hand.
But on to the good:
Mike Flanagan and his recurring casting directors—Anne McCarthy, Morgan Robbins, and Kellie Roy—have a gift for choosing people I want to see on my screen.1 We have a banger cast here, from Tom Hiddleston as the titular Chuck to Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Carl Lumbly, Matthew Lillard, Rahul Kohli, David Dastmalchian, Harvey Guillén, and on and on. These are not always superbly developed roles—Lumbly, Lillard, and Dastmalchian probably do the best at making their smaller parts eye-catching and memorable—but they’re occupied by endearing presences who are good at conveying sincere emotion.
If you’re me—a Stephen King fan and so-called Constant Reader—the film, a faithful adaptation of King’s novella, also has a congenial voice. King’s sensibility has been part of my life for decades at this point, and I have a lot of affection for it. I suspect you’d have to, to enjoy this, because Flanagan makes bits of it feel an awful lot like an illustrated audiobook.
The film also, and perhaps unsurprisingly, considering its source material, doesn’t shy away from darkness and pain. When a young Chuck’s family is briskly disposed of in a few lines of voiceover narration—“Chuck was looking forward to having a baby sister. Of course, he was also looking forward to having parents, but none of that worked out, thanks to a patch of well-hidden ice on an I-95 overpass”—my wife pointed out that the film’s blurb had called it “life-affirming,” which felt bitterly funny after a line like that. I said—and I think this is key for me—that you need this for it to feel honestly life-affirming, that otherwise it’s just affirming a shiny, happy version of life no one actually has.
It’s easy to find value in happiness. The Life of Chuck at least tries to go beyond that, to look on a world that includes catastrophic entropy, brain tumors, loss, blinding pain, bittersweet regrets, lost dreams, and the innocent hurt we do to people we only want the best for as well as persistent love, moving reunions, courage, connections between strangers, and dance. It helps that it doesn’t go overboard on the despair, either: as the Offerman excerpt hopefully indicates, it can be unsentimental even about its sentiment. It sometimes lingers, but it rarely wallows.
But the best part of The Life of Chuck comes in the Hiddleston dance scene that’s the film’s emotional core. An accountant—already dying, though he doesn’t yet know it—hears a busker (Taylor Gordon) drumming a little beat for him, and he starts to dance. It becomes a crowd scene that’s maybe a little overplayed, with a whole enthusiastic circle gathered around him as he dances: first alone, and then with a young woman (Annalise Basso) who’s just been dumped. Overplayed or not, though, there’s a genuine sense of joy to Hiddleston here as he lets Chuck shake loose, openly reveling in something you can tell he hasn’t done in far too long.
What really makes the scene for me, though, is the wordless rapport that develops between Chuck and Taylor, the drummer. The film makes time to show tiny looks passing between them, little pauses of near-spontaneous collaboration, negotiations in glances: if I do this, will you do this? Should I pause to give you a break here? Do you want to get ready for this part? It feels miraculous but also human, and when Chuck finally finishes his dance and directs the applause back to his partner and to Taylor, it’s everything the film is saying—every loss is a kind of mini-apocalypse, life is suffused with wonder, and we all carry everyone we know with us—in loving miniature. I too have strangers who became a meaningful part of my life, even for only a few seconds. It’s nice to see art recognize that they matter.
The Life of Chuck is streaming on Kanopy.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Justified, Season Four, Episode Five, “Over The Mountain”
“Sounds like you’re selling me tires.”
“Using every word in the Webster’s without ever sayin’ a damn thing.”
This feels like a little semi-explicit look into how Raylan’s enemies are created. You can see how people turn out the way they do from the kids in the environment – you specifically see some kid with his parents discover Dewey in comparison to Kendell Crowe and the horrifying shit he sees and is taught to do. Very canny choice to have Kendell give himself up to save Darryl, because kids tend to love their caregivers. You even have Darryl give Dewey an emotional beatdown about family and shit. The past decade has seen a rise in the concept of No Contact, where people simply up and leave their parents completely. At the risk of sounding sarcastic, I think that’s the sign of a healthy society – that people are able to find support outside of their family and leave a toxic situation without starving to death. Otherwise you get pulled further into their bullshit like Dewey.
Biggest Laugh: “I’m not sure that’s gonna get you back up north to your free healthcare.”
Biggest Non-Art Laugh: Boyd and Tim playing Scrabble when Raylan gets back from finding Messer.
Top Ownage: Danny Strong getting the piss beaten out of him to protect Ava.
Poor, poor Kendall. Good kid actor as far as putting up a protective front while still affected by the fuck-up adults around him.
Frasier, “Lilith Needs a Favor” – And it’s a doozy: she’s decided she wants another baby, and the best possible choice for sperm donor (and maybe but not definitely also a part time dad) is Frasier. Frasier goes back and forth on whether to do it but ultimately decides it is not a good choice for himself. But not till we get some really great gags, like Martin pondering whether Lilith would ask him (being the source of Frasier’s perfection) and how his prospective child would be related to everyone else. And a scene at a fertility clinic where there are some surprisingly tasteful but still funny masturbation jokes. Slightly less tasteful but still funny is Niles thinking that Daphne took a photo of her nipple as a surprise. (It turns out to be a chest selfie from Martin. Eek.) Brent Spiner guest stars as a fellow passenger on the flights to and from Boston, comparing notes about how pale he and Lilth are. (I guess it wasn’t just makeup on TNG.) There is also a brief appearance by Kevin Chamberlin, already a two time Tony nominee if not that well known on TV. And from what I can tell, Lilith did not have that second child (and I bet the writers of the legacyquel never even thought about that).
Twin Peaks, season 2 episode 4 – one of the most unsettling openings to an episode, certainly this side of The Return. A fairly weak episode otherwise, heavy on plotlines I don’t particularly care for (Audrey’s abduction, Lucy’s baby – although that one’s worth it for the eventual pay-off, Harold Smith). But it’s still thoroughly enjoyable, with a few great moments – I love Cooper asking for Harry to give him his “best man” without questions and Harry selecting… himself. Ray Wise is incredible at the start of the episode too, and while I’m generally not a fan of Josie, she gets one of her best scenes here where she goes full femme-fatale to override Harry’s extremely justified suspicions. Also I do enjoy seeing Hank getting beaten up, of course.
Joan Chen is iconic but wasn’t the best served actor on Twin Peaks obviously. People who want to see what she can do should watch The Last Emperor.
Yeah, in a show packed with memorable characters she gets very little to work with beyond “beautiful and mysterious”. Then she gets stuck in my least favourite plotline in the whole show and the weirdest possible fate. One of the few Twin Peaks things where I genuinely think they fucked up, honestly.
Which is never explained! What happened to her, David and Mark?! Argh.
Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins – Good! I think this show is firmly good, not quite great (yet) but still very funny and a showcase for Morgan and Radcliffe. The latter especially is doing some strong physical comedy and lunacy here, including jumping over a car and wearing a blonde wig as “Mr. Ricochet” when Arthur was in a parkour phase. So far the dynamic of Reggie having more to teach Arthur than the latter thinks is a nice reversal too. The B-plot just didn’t do much for me in laughs though it got Precious Way in several gorgeous outfits. Nevertheless, great ending that makes me want to keep watching and sometimes that’s all you can ask for. (One actress name: Anna Camp.)
Notes/Gags: Please let Monica cycle through different assistants every few episodes. “I forgot her ex works with her, I’ll get a new phone!”
“Are you being nice to me or are you rubbing fish grease on my jacket?”
“It can be both, Arthur Tobin.”
“Your mom’s a hooker!” “Sex work is work…”
“The Jake Paul – Morgan Freeman fight”
“Monica grew up in the fancy part of Sheepneck. It was still a food desert, but they had all kinds of beverages.”
“So you and Monica really had a kind of a Romeo and Juliet thing going on.”
“Yeah, including the part where the priest poisoned her. But that guy was poisoning everybody.”
But my favorite line was “Well, I reviewed the offer, and Akinyele got more money to use ‘Put It in your Mouth’ for the new Kirby game.” I don’t know who in the audience is old enough to remember that one, but I screamed.
Lol that joke went over my head.
Live music – The Belair Lip Bombs are the best thing from Australia you’ll read about here today. A very young indie band with a preternatural gift for hooks and grooves. Rare that even the songs I don’t know from a band are so instantly catchy. My friend was pulling out some extreme comparisons (The Clash, seeing Nirvana right before Nevermind blew up) and I don’t think he’s totally wrong. The sky could be the limit for them. A must-see if you get the opportunity.
DTF St. Louis. This is a weird show that is increasingly about love and the awkward and difficult things we’ll do to find and keep it. I don’t think I’ll have a final verdict until it’s over, but the performances remain stellar.
Mike Flanagan’s work is more hit than miss for me, at least so far, but this had seemed really skippable to me. But I guess my perception was wrong!
I certainly wouldn’t unreservedly recommend it, like I would with, say, his The Fall of the House of Usher, but if the prospect of it being too sentimental doesn’t sound unbearable, it’s at least worth a shot! Great cast and some lovely moments. (And speaking of your recent article, Hiddleston is definitely another one of those “That Guy can’t stand that women are into this particular actor/character” candidates.)
It might be a bit on the sentimental side for me but not so much I wouldn’t get anything out of the film, I think. (Hiddleston very much is! He’s hit or miss in terms of hotness for me, tbh, but I consistently like his performances. He’s very charismatic.)
Great film.