A Stephen King adaptation filmed in Alabama has been getting mixed but generally positive reviews since its recent film-festival debut.
Filming for “The Life of Chuck” took place in late 2023 at locations including downtown Mobile and a closed Bay Minette school campus. At the end of filming, director and co-writer Mike Flanagan expressed gratitude to Foley, Fairhope, Daphne, Spanish Fort, Bay Minette and Mobile for their hospitality as a “small but fierce” crew worked on his “tenacious little miracle of a movie.”
“The Life of Chuck” is a novella in three parts, presented in reverse chronological order, concerning the life of Charles Krantz. In the first, his death coincides with the apparent end of the world.
The film version stars Tom Hiddleston, along with Mark Hamill, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, David Dastmalchian and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, generating a number of reviews.
A sampling of review excerpts follows.
RogerEbert.com: “Flanagan’s work, especially the ‘Haunting’ Netflix shows, has also been distinguished by deep emotional undercurrents, and that’s the tool from his kit that he leans into most of all with this moving study of how valuable every moment is that we’re on this floating ball of dust. We have a habit of getting carried away by the minutia and the worries of the world, and ‘The Life of Chuck’ argues that nothing matters more than right now. And a good dance number.”
The Wrap: “Mike Flanagan has always undertaken cinematic confrontations with mortality, but none have ever been quite as magnificent and moving as ‘The Life of Chuck.’ The Tom Hiddleston-starring feature is less of a horror film than it is an existential grappling with the end — while also being a jubilant celebration of the moments that make life worth living along the way. It’s Flanagan’s vibrant equivalent of Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’ that finds hope and meaning in his own way just as it is one of the best modern Stephen King adaptations one could hope for.”
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A crew works on the production of “The Life of Chuck” on Nov. 7, 2023, in downtown Mobile.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
The Hollywood Reporter: “It comes as no surprise that reigning scare-meister Mike Flanagan has a soft spot for Stephen King, having successfully adapted Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep for the big screen. But his latest stab at King, the genre-warping The Life of Chuck, makes for an oddball if less ideal fit. … The end result offers up such unexpected developments as a dancing Tom Hiddleston and Mark Hamill as a Jewish zayde (grandpa), [that] Flanagan’s rabid fan base might prefer to wait for his planned take on The Exorcist franchise.”
Screen Rant: “It’s sentimental in the best ways and lighthearted despite a grim core. ‘The Life of Chuck’ asks us to wash away the fear and sadness so often felt with death, and reminds us to find the joy in life, even when it’s at its most chaotic. While the film can be a touch slow at times, it fully embraces its sweet, tender side.”
IndieWire: “Many of the points being made here are of a generic ‘enjoy every sandwich’ type of bent. But there is something touching about ‘Chuck’s’ core premise, which is that even the smallest and most ordinary of lives is animated by a divine spark. … Whether one finds this uplifting or eye-rolling is a matter of taste, and cynics will likely find Flanagan’s latest far too saccharine for theirs. Viewers with a sweet tooth, meanwhile, may find themselves thoroughly charmed by ‘Chuck’s’ dorky earnestness.”
The Daily Beast: “Though The Life of Chuck is an intensely faithful adaptation of a King novella (from 2020’s If It Bleeds), it’s a film that’s as sweet as it is scary, and whose frights are the sort that come from all-too-relatable fears about being alone, being apart, and being unable to hold onto the people and memories that matter most.
Flanagan previously directed two other King adaptations. One of them, “Gerald’s Game,” also was filmed in the Mobile area. It does not appear that a general release date has been announced for “The Life of Chuck.”
