This is a big week for Stephen King fans, and one that Constant Readers have been anticipating for about a year-and-a-half. Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck is set to make have its world premiere this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, though it was in May 2023 that the writer/director first announced he was developing an adaptation of the novella.
I’m personally on the ground in Toronto and beyond thrilled to see The Life Of Chuck as part of my festival coverage (stay tuned for my reaction in the coming days here on CinemaBlend!), but before the big debut, this week’s King Beat is here to dig into the film a bit – including Stephen King’s reaction to the adaptation and Dark Tower references that Mike Flanagan is (gun)slinging around in discussion of his latest movie.
Even Mike Flanagan’s Discussion Of The Life Of Chuck Now Features Dark Tower Easter Eggs
One of the joys of Mike Flanagan adapting Stephen King is that he makes a regular habit of using the movies as vehicles for making references to The Dark Tower. There is a scene in Gerald’s Game where Bruce Greenwood’s Gerald tells Carla Gugino’s Jesse, “All things serve The Beam” (a phase from Mid-World, the setting of The Dark Tower series), and there are multiple nods to the epic in Doctor Sleep – including the word “Ka” in block letters in Abra’s room and a poster advertising a Dandelo comedy show.
In the run up to the Dark Tower TV series he is currently developing, it seems that Flanagan can’t help but slip in little Easter eggs wherever and whenever he can… and apparently that even extends to doing interviews about The Life Of Chuck.
Vanity Fair has posted a feature about the upcoming Stephen King movie in advance of its world premiere this week, and Mike Flanagan’s quotes about his film in the piece include a special wink to The Dark Tower. In the first act of The Life Of Chuck, characters played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly and more find themselves in a world that is quickly crumbling apart, and Flanagan spoke about drawing on the state of our own existence:
I’ve heard it said that every generation feels a little like the world is ending at some point, [but] I still feel like it’s different for us. Institutions we took for granted as propping up our society are failing left and right. Our politics have degraded spectacularly. The sense that it’s breaking down, that the world is moving on, has been increasingly palpable. When I talk to my parents or members of older generations who have been through their own turbulent times, the thing that strikes me is that they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is really bad.’
So… did you catch it?
The phrase “the world is moving on” surely popped out to any of you who have read any of the Dark Tower series, as that’s the way that Stephen King explains the desolate state of Mid-World when we first meet protagonist Roland Deschain at the start of the first book, The Gunslinger. It’s a suggestion of a time and place beyond the end of things of modern civilization.
In the first act of Stephen King’s novella “The Life Of Chuck,” the world hasn’t totally moved on, but things are progressing in that direction. Natural disasters see the destruction of food centers, California crumbles into the ocean, internet and television broadcasts fail, and sink holes randomly appear. Amidst all of this destruction, however, is a curiosity: advertisements start appearing everywhere featuring a picture of a smiling accountant and the words, “Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!”
As for how this apocalypse is brought to the big screen, Mike Flanagan stressed that it’s not an opportunity to return to his horror roots even briefly in The Life Of Chuck. The director explains that it’s not a scary movie or a disaster movie, it’s something else.
There’s no sense of terror in the way that King drew it. Even as the world feels as though it’s ending, people become introspective, they reach into their past for loves that have left their lives for one reason or another. Strangers engage in open and fearless communication… A disaster movie has people meeting the end while running from tidal waves, and this story has people sitting quietly holding hands looking at the stars.
If you think that sounds surprisingly wonderful and peaceful, just wait until you hear how Stephen King feels about Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck.
Stephen King’s Three-Word Review Of The Life Of Chuck Suggests It Will Have A Special Place In The Legacy Of Adaptations
When speaking of his pop culture image as a master of horror, Stephen King likes to relate a story about an encounter he had with a woman in a Florida supermarket. She recognized him, but dismissed his work as being about horrible things. The punchline is that she suggested he write stories about more uplifting things… specifically referencing Frank Darabont’s film The Shawshank Redemption (which, of course, is based on King’s novella “Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption”).
It’s a cute fan interaction tale, and it comes to mind this week with the author’s reaction after seeing Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck. It’s not a film full of monsters and terror; on the contrary, in Stephen King’s description to Vanity Fair, it’s,
‘[A] happiness machine.’
I like to refer to The Shawshank Redemption as an antidote to cynicism, as it’s a film that deeply believes in the power of hope, but it does so without a drop of saccharine or a single false moment. It has a grim setting, and the ensemble is almost entirely populated with convicted criminals, but it’s nonetheless an inspiring, perspective-altering work that has been initiating joy for a full 30 years as of next Tuesday. It’s the original “happiness” machine in the Stephen King canon.
Happiness is clearly a vital ingredient in Mike Flanagan’s vision for The Life Of Chuck, and he notes in the first look piece that it was a key component in the casting of Tom Hiddleston. The filmmaker considered a “relative unknown” for the part of Chuck Krantz in the film, but he was ultimately convinced to cast the Loki star after seeing a viral video of the actor cutting a rug on a talk show. More than being impressed by Hiddleston’s slick moves (remember that there is a five-and-a-half minute dance sequence in the film), the director recognized that the man in the on-camera moment was radiating bliss.
How that will translate to the big screen in The Life Of Chuck is something that audiences will be discovering for the first time very soon. Also starring Mark Hamill, Mia Sara, Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan and many more in addition to Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, and Carl Lumbly, the movie will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow, Friday, September 6.
Recommendation Of The Week: “The Life Of Chuck”
I’m admittedly breaking one of my own rules here. Because of the sheer number of Stephen King novellas and short stories that have been published in the last half-century, I’ve made it a goal of mine not to repeat titles in this space, and I previously recommended checking out “The Life Of Chuck” around this time last year when Mike Flanagan’s adaptation was gearing up for production. Given all of the excitement about the premiere of the film this week, however, I think it is perfectly appropriate to suggest it again – and it helps that it happens to be a story that is even better when you re-read it.
First published in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds, “The Life Of Chuck” unfolds in three distinct acts that play out in reverse chronological order. Act III, titled “Thanks, Chuck!” is the section of the novella that features the aforementioned strange, advertisement-filled apocalypse.
In Act II, titled “Buskers,” an ordinary accountant named Charles Krantz is on a trip to Boston for a business conference, and he finds himself swept up in the beat of a drummer playing in Boston Common – leading to an impromptu dance with a beautiful stranger.
Finally, Act I, titled “I Contain Multitudes,” explores the childhood of young Chuck, who loses his parents at a young age and moves in with his grandparents. It’s his grandmother who instills in him a love of dance, and from his grandfather that he learns about a mysterious section of the house – a seemingly ordinary cupola that the child is told he shouldn’t explore because it’s filled with ghosts.
That brings this edition of The King Beat to an end, but as noted at the beginning, stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming days for my TIFF review of The Life Of Chuck, and be sure to head back here to the site next Thursday for the latest roundup of all the big news from the world of Stephen King.