Some of Stephen King's best works are those that don't fall into the horror genre, and that is also true of films based on his work. From Shawshank to Stand By Me King's ability to weave complex threads into accessible and gripping stories is unrivalled. The Life of Chuck, with all its personal grandeur should easily be in that category but I'm not sure it gets there. There feels something timid and restrained about this film that never lets it really take off.
The story is lovely and speaks to our uniqueness, our specialness, and our loneliness. It is about the complicated relationships between our interior and exterior lives, our need for connections and our need to be who we are. There is an element of magic or providence involved that is at once disheartening and comforting. It contains a lot of seemingly contradictory feelings brought together in very clever ways.
But the film never quite makes any of it real. It always feels a bit constructed, a little to pat. I never felt I could see Chuck's journey as authentic, and it always felt more like it was trying to make its point more than tell its story.
Still it is a nice story and honestly a rather entertaining one. I didn't dislike The Life of Chuck, not at all. But it never crossed into the place where it swept me up in its magic, which, felt necessary in this particular case.
The Life of Chuck
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, Mark Hamill, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Nick Offerman, Annalise Basso, Taylor Gordon, Kate Siegal, Samantha Sloyen, Trinity Bliss, Mia Sara, Carla Gugino, Q'orianka Kilcher, Rahul Kohli, Harvey Guillén, David Dastmalchian
Writer/Director: Mike Flanagan
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