USA  2024
Opening July 24

Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Writing credits: Mike Flanagan
Principal actors: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejoifor, Karen Gillian, Mia Sara, Carol Lumbly, Benjamin Pajak

As a young boy, Chuck, lives with his grandparents in a large Victorian house built 1888. He enjoys dancing, which he learns from his grandmother. He joins a dance group called Twirlers and Spinners and shows his teacher how to do Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk. His grandfather tries to convince him of the importance of mathematics, contrary to dancing, saying “Math is truth and can do a lot of things, can’t lie.” Chuck is forbidden to enter a room at the top of their house, which, naturally, arouses his curiosity. As a young man, he works as an accountant and will go to a bank conference. Out on the street, a drummer entices him to dance while the general public watches. At age 39, he lies in a hospital bed, cared for by nurse Felicia Gordon, who is also his ex-girlfriend. The world seems to have reached some kind of end with no electricity or internet. The earth shakes; California falls off the west coast of the USA; there is a volcano in Germany.

Based on a 2020 short story by Stephan King, the film is divided into three parts and begins with Chuck at age 39 and rolls backwards to him at age 10, i.e. first: Act 3: Thanks Chuck, then Act 2: Buskers Forever (buskers are street performers), and then Act 1: I Contain Multitudes. Four excellent actors play him at different ages. Cody Flanagan and Benjamin Pajak are young Chucks; Jacob Trembley is a teenaged Chuck, and Tom Hiddleston is the adult version. The “multitudes” are “contained” within our own brains. Filmed in Mobile, Alabama, USA, we can compare our own lives with Chuck’s, perhaps similar—or not. And what’s so mysterious about the locked-up room? The Life of Chuck won the audience award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. (Becky T.)