Review of Life of Chuck

Life of Chuck is a symphony dedicated to the quite awesomeness of living that hits a discordant note in its structure. Still, many people will forgive its missteps and find it a worthwhile watch.

Life of Chuck is an exploration of what gives our relatively short lives meaning, while constantly reminding us of the cosmic timeline, going as far as explaining Carl Sagan’s concept of the calendar of the universe twice. The movie frames humanity vs the universe: we’re a blip in time’s flow,  “a mote of dust caught in a sunbeam.” The movie ultimately expresses the dignity of a life lived well, pointing us toward kindness, but also hammers home the fact that the weight of a life’s end can often be nigh unbearable. By exploring its topics through characters’ passions, including drumming, dancing, mathematics, teaching, (and perhaps complaining), it encourages us to seize the day, to wrest from every moment every molecule of joy. 

At the same time, it makes awkward structural decisions and what might be called a shift in genre that will be a deal breaker for some in its attempt to poetically convey what are at bottom cliched feel-good concepts.

The movie starts at its end and works backward in three acts, each announced by a title card and some old-fashioned voiceover. The first act is a disaster movie, the pre-apocalypse. However, while the world literally winds down, a mysterious man named Chuck’s 39-year retirement is fanfared in commercials, billboards and everywhere that hasn’t yet fallen into a sinkhole or been consumed by fire. The following two acts tell us who this Chuck dude is. The intertwined stories require actual participation from the viewer to piece together, though the puzzle is about as easy as such narrative Rubik’s cubes come.

Unfortunately, the first act contains fantastical elements and a love story that the next two acts lack. The narrator is charming at times and jarring at others. These elements come and go and may leave some feeling unsteady as hearing an off-beat drum performance. Once the film is considered in its entirety, the acts weave together a la Memento, but the genre-shift works better in the original Stephen King short story than this film based on it. 

The acting in this movie sells the premise well. The Solipsistic scenario in the beginning recalls the off-kilter Nick Cage film Dream Scenario, which most people have probably forgotten about already. Acting makes or breaks such a film, and this one outperforms its heavily bearded predecessor. You can feel the anxiety boiling beneath the veneer of calm from every character. Later, when we learn about Chuck, the same subtlety sells a life that while not loud, has depth to it. And Mark Hamil is always a hoot to see, even if he’s not playing a Jedi or voicing an insane clown. We would have benefited from more Tom Hiddleston, who performs a back-breaking dance number for several minutes, though the other child performances land just this side of good, managing to encompass tones of grief, young infatuation, early poetic wonder and the infantile magic of the Moon Walk.

There is nothing overtly good nor bad about the cinematography. There are a few excellent shots that celebrate the majesty of the universe and the final shot in the movie is a loud trumpet blare reinforcing the movie’s message. 

Picture the film as a series of vignettes, which tenuously unify, and you will not be bothered by the structure. I would recommend watching other celebration-of-life movies over this such as Nine Days, The Hundred Foot Journey or Perfect Days, which all rely on more straightforward storytelling. 

You will come away pondering the state of society and perhaps your own life. Given such a finite span to become our true selves, what path should we choose?