The Life of Chuck is one of those films that I took a gamble on. The trailers that I had seen didnt really show very much but it did show that it had a stella cast including Tom Hiddelston, Karen Gillan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Hamil and Matthew Lillard. This film is a genre bending, narrative bending film which strangely starts off with act three. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan are a former married couple and Ejiofor is a teacher and Gillan is a nurse. The internet stops working and at first people seem to be more concerned with whether it will come back or not and at one point someone is worried if porn is going to be back. As things get progressively worse and adverts appear for someone called Chuck who is celebrating 39 years even though he barely looks older than 39 and the planets start going out. No one seems to know who he is but that never really gets solved because the film isn't really about filling in the blanks.
I was worried when Ejiofor started talking about something with a calendar because it came quite close to being pretentious. Thankfully when this is over the film recovers and the story moves on.
Chapter two is next and it’s at this point we are properly introduced to Chuck which comes at the 40 minute mark. We learn that Chuck has 9 months to live which ties in with the first/third act and we see that Chuck has a rather mundane life and is just walking along when a busker starts playing music and he starts dancing. The dancing scene was enjoyable and arguably the best of the film. I enjoyed this act more than the previous one, there wasn't the level of waffling that there seemed to be in the first/third act and I thought that Hiddelston and Annalise Basso who played Janice Halliday were given enough time to seem like interesting characters. It was also more upbeat which helped.
Then we have act one with Chuck in his younger years. Chuck’s mom and dad died when he was young and his grandparents looked after him. There is a room that Chuck is told to never go in which is the same room and house that Ejiofor’s character lives in. He learns to love dancing and this is how he ends up meeting his wife and this is where the time bending stuff happens because we soon see Ejiofor and Gillan’s characters who are now happy. It’s at this point that we get all the answers, the secret room is one where you will see how you will die which explains why the door was locked and the final shot is of the young Chuck seeing his older self and he decides to live his life until his life runs out but apart from a few moments, we never get the feeling that he does live his life so its a slightly odd message.
Overall the film is fine. I didn't know what to expect and so it was difficult to know if I was disappointed or not. The performances are fine although it would have been nice to have more of Hiddleston since he is on the poster and in the trailers. Telling the story in reverse worked quite well and I enjoyed the dancing scenes and its positive message is something that is delivered well and not told in a way that annoyed me even if the pretentious moments from act three risked that.
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