When you hear Stephen King films it is easy to assume killer clowns luring people into the sewers or undead pets. With a career as long as his it is hard not to forget that King also penned books that were adapted into The Green Mile and The Running Man. While the King of Horror he is not short for a backlog of books in other genres and a few short stories too.
That very artful segway brings us to the Life of Chuck a novella from a more recent 2020 compilation ‘If It Bleeds’ which contained 4 unpublished stories. While it is hard to talk about without spoiling much of the film we feel strongly about saying imagine if Stephen King wrote a Forrest Gump, without any historical events, and did it in reverse.
That is probably the cleanest way we can describe Life of Chuck as it begins with the 3rd of three chapters counting backwards. While connected each chapter could have been dozens of chapters apart in the real Life of Chuck as we travel backwards starting at the End of the World or more correctly Universe.
Having made it to 39 celebrating Chuck’s life is on billboards and TV ads as parts of the world drop into the ocean, sinkholes and the internet goes out as it just seems like the end times and throughout this entire chapter there is one person you do meet – Chuck.
Without spoiling and as mentioned each chapter is a story in itself from a point in Chuck’s life but you only start to piece together how as you enter the mid chapter which is nothing at all like the first but you cannot help but see what we will call call backs or call forwards that help you start to understand how this story is connected and structured.
Each chapter is a new cast with some crossover as you piece together some of the key points in Chuck’s life. While we did mention Forrest Gump as an analogue this is both completely true and utter madness as each chapter is not only self contained in story but limited in locations and scope – telling only the story it means to to contribute to a section of the whole.
Visually this is a story based film with the first chapter being one that definitely hooks you in as you try to work out how did we start with the world ending but really this hinges on the characters from each chapter which include Mark Hamill, Karen Gillian and Chiwetel Ejiofor.. there is even some Nick Offerman and Rahul Kohli sprinkled in there too. Each chapter even has a different genre with world ending sci-fi at one end and the supernatural at the other.
So, should you go see it? If you are a fan of Stephen King’s work for more than just things that make you want to have a nightlight then yeah probably. While it might sound optimistic this one is a bit more on the melancholy and a little bit sad by the end as you really dig into what made up Chuck’s life. But if you like your stories deep and meaningful this one contains multitudes.
Life of Chuck is in cinemas across Australia from August 14
