by After the fall of the Usher and Doctor Sleep house, director Mike Flanagan returns to Stephen King's literary universe by adapting the new Life of Chuck. The result? An ode to unforgettable life, to discover indoors now!
Through three enigmatic acts, Life of Chuck sketches the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), an ordinary man, whose existence seems to be fleeting beauty, poetry and signs of destiny … both metaphysical meditation on a world in decline and luminous ode to life, this overwhelming film is to be discovered now in the cinema.
The upsetting reflection of the richness of existence …
If it is the adaptation of the new eponymous of the master of horror Stephen King, published in 2020 in the collection if it bleeds, Life of Chuck abandoned the terror to adopt a resolutely optimistic, although overwhelming tone. Indeed, the story is imbued with poetry since it is intended, in a assumed way, the illustration of the thought expressed by the American poet Walt Whitman in his poem song of myself (1855). It also comes back as a leitmotif in history: “I contain multitudes”, repeats Chuck. Thus, in his eyes, each life contains an infinity of possibilities and universes.
Nour Films
Rather than dwelling on exploits or tragedies, Life of Chuck endeavors to highlight the simple moments of existence, to remind the spectator that the beauty of life lies in its details. A cup of shared coffee, the vision of a starry sky, an improvised dance in the street …
This life drive is still the filmmaker Mike Flanagan, already in charge of the Doctor Sleep adaptation, who talks about it best: “I hope that the public will keep in him a part of this inherent joy in history, that it will help him to apprehend and sometimes overcome the world of today, the challenges of our lives, and will encourage them to pose their case to go to dance.”
Nour Films
The film also celebrates the fruit of chance and happy statistics: good encounters, stars, defined as “the most beautiful equation in the universe” … Like Chuck, the film suggests to the spectator to adopt a more serene vision of life, not to run after the absolute “meaning”, and rather to find satisfaction in the moment by pushing us to think about the singular value of each existence.
… In a “world” film at the crossroads
Life, death, memories… Life of Chuck, story of the beauty of simple things and the fragility of existence, has apparently everything of drama. However, throughout the film, supernatural elements with fantastic looks arise and blur the tracks between reality and fiction: the stars disappear, the roads crack, a childhood house takes on the appearance of a haunted mansion … If Chuck does not live an exceptional life in the strict sense of the term, the marvelous and the strange constantly emanate from the moments that he lives, from the first to the last minute.
Skillfully mixing drama and mystical, Life of Chuck completes its evolution in work of total art by touching a particularly codified genre: musical. Thus, dance occupies a central place in the life of the character and in the feature film, multiplying the references and the choreographed scenes.
Nour Films
Onirical fable with poetic accents, overwhelming ballet giving pride of place at random mathematical existence, Life of Chuck will delight lovers of human dramas as much as fantastic stories, space as much as philosophy.
Life of Chuck, a resolutely optimistic poignant film, is to be discovered in theaters now.
