This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with saccharine sentimentality and ponderous monologues about the meaning of life.
The Life of Chuck is the latest film from horror auteur Mike Flanagan, whose screenplay adapts a Stephen King novella — but, despite having those names attached, this isn't a horror film, but rather a cloying dramedy in the mould of American Beauty or Life as a House. It lays the sweetness on treacle thick, aiming for profundity with the brute force of its inspirational messaging and syrupy score.
The Life of Chuck is broken up into three numbered acts, which play in reverse order because whatever, why not. A moment of silence for the iMovie-ass font on those title cards, which instantly signal that this is going to be tacky dross.
Initially, it's an intriguing apocalyptic drama, as a schoolteacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his nurse ex-wife (Karen Gillan) grapple for meaning while the world falls apart around them. The grid goes down, California literally breaks off into the ocean, sinkholes open up in the street, and mysterious ads congratulating some guy named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) appear everywhere. It's alarmingly relatable for anyone who frets about environmental collapse and the rise of fascism, although Flanagan dunks the whole thing in a cheese bath of manipulative piano plinks and Carl Sagan speeches.
Then, with a hard pivot in Act 2, viewers are given the backstory about Chuck, and Flanagan gradually reveals the metaphorical significance of all that end-of-the-world stuff, since this is unfortunately not an actual apocalypse movie.
The Life of Chuck is a movie of Important Themes, as Flanagan takes a big swing by making a film about all the joys and sorrows that make up a life, and the grand universe that exists within each person's consciousness. And while the film's symbolism actually is kinda clever, the execution is a self-serious bore, with bits of worldly wisdom punctuated with gaudy piano flourishes, and key moments narrated with winky gravitas by Nick Offerman.
Flanagan actually achieves the emotion he's seeking during the film's most humble, intimate chapter, when a young Chuck (played by Benjamin Pajak, by far the standout) takes an extracurricular dance class and tries to muster up the courage to strut his stuff at the school formal. It's in these too-brief scenes that Flanagan finally decides to show rather than tell, with a relatable tale of childhood awkwardness that says much more about life's magic moments than any big speech or clumsy voiceover.
The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival runs September 5–15. Get information about tickets and screening at TIFF's website.