The Life of Chuck is a 2024 American fantasy drama, written and directed by Mike Flanagan, adapted from Stephen King’s story of the same name. It had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, and received its UK theatrical release on 20 August 2025.

The film is split into three acts, played backwards in time order. We begin with Act 3 where the principal character is a schoolteacher, Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and we see the Universe coming to an end from his perspective. Chuck appears as some kind of ever-present spectre on billboards, on the TV and radio news, and staring from house and office windows. Act 2 follows, set nine months earlier, where Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), a thirty-eight-year-old accountant on a banking conference, does a bit of dancing to the tunes of a busking drummer. Act 1 (played last) gets more to the meat of the story. (Here 17-year-old chuck is played by Jacob Tremblay; 11-year-old Chuck by Benjamin Pajak; and 7-year-old Chuck by Cody Flanagan.) We see his early life, find out how he became an orphan, and, in particular, how he learned to dance. He has a cuddly old, bearded Grandpa called “Zayde” (Mark Hamill) who is also an accountant. A film about two accountants, I hear you say – that sounds boring! Well, by and large, it is!

The film appears to be a desperate search to find some kind of deep meaning to life; it doesn’t succeed! The hype will tell you that it will touch you deeply; it didn’t touch me at all, unless you count touching me for £12! The Hype also claims it to be “It’s a Wonderful Life for today”; ludicrous: the only similarity is that both are American films, otherwise they sit at separate ends of a spectrum.

Why have I given it two stars and not the minimum? Well some of the dancing was okay.

I had been on a great run: a total of 13 stars from my last three films. I have come down to Earth with a bang: The Life of Chuck is not worth turning a television on for, let alone venturing to a cinema.