Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may be the big horror release of the week on a theatrical level, but the Toronto International Film Festival is set to upstage it with a Stephen King adaptation that could not possibly be less Stephen King-coded.
This is The Life of Chuck, a post-apocalyptic drama film based on King’s 2020 novella of the same name. Per Vanity Fair, King was skeptical about the mileage of a Life of Chuck adaptation, but having now seen the film, he described it as “a happiness machine.” King’s review, of course, is the most important one of all, so The Life of Chuck couldn’t be off on a better foot here.
Of course, the artistic firepower behind the production has long suggested a homerun. Tom Hiddleston headlines a cast that also features Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, David Dastmalchian, Carl Lumbly, and Heather Langenkamp. Weaving it all together is writer-director Mike Flanagan, who Netflix subscribers will recognize as that horror storyteller that you should never, ever bet against (see: The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher).
The Life of Chuck follows—surprise surprise—a man named Chuck, whose mundane yet profound life takes center stage as the world begins to literally fall apart. What sets The Life of Chuck apart from its post-apocalyptic brethren, however, is its very pure commitment to hope. The end of the world isn’t played as a disaster worthy of all of our screams, but as an upheaval of social pressure that allows human beings to speak to each other with unprecedented sincerity.
If that sounds timely, that’s because it is. As Flanagan puts it in the same Vanity Fair article, “the sense that [our society] is breaking down, that the world is moving on, has been increasingly palpable.” He makes particular note of the degradation of politics, which has indeed mutated into a horrifically combative machine that exists to divide rather than unite.
The Life of Chuck, then, has preemptively marked itself not as a call to action, but a call to permission. Permission to love one another and cherish the feeling of pure experience. To be fearless about owning our insecurities, whether they’re trivial or existential. To relentlessly seek out life’s beauty both in spite of and because of life’s pain.
Indeed, it’s a far cry from the usual Flanagan meal, but The Life of Chuck might just also be exactly the one we all need. The film will premiere at TIFF on Sept. 6, where it will hopefully be picked up by a major distributor.