Stephen King is no stranger to the hit-and-miss nature of movie adaptations of written fiction. Many of his novels, novellas, and short stories have been adapted into films of varying quality, from the critical and commercial bomb Maximum Overdrive to the middling Pet Sematary to well-regarded classics like Misery and The Shawshank Redemption. King has had varied opinions on those adaptations, especially concerning their faithfulness to his original work. For example, he praised the changes Frank Darabont made in his 2007 adaptation The Mist while castigating the changes Stanley Kubrick made in the 1980 horror classic The Shining.
Thankfully for King and his fans, Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 6, looks like it’s shaping up to be a solid adaptation of his work. King himself has called the movie “one of the good ones” in adapting his work to the screen; film critics at the festival have said it could rank as the best movie ever made from a Stephen King story. The movie does not yet have a general release date, so to whet fans’ appetites for whenever they can eventually see the movie, here’s a closer look at The Life of Chuck and the praise it’s received.
Stephen King’s “The Life of Chuck”
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King is, of course, a master of the horror genre, with dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories in that genre to his name. He has stepped out of that genre several times in his career to deliver tense, thrilling, heartfelt, and moving works in others. Take, for instance, his uplifting prison drama “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” his epic fantasy series The Dark Tower, and his crime thriller The Colorado Kid.
The 2020 novella “The Life of Chuck” from his collection If It Bleeds is another foray outside of horror. Though the story takes place in a potentially horrifying scenario, as the world is experiencing various apocalyptic events, the novella focuses more on the outer and inner life of protagonist Chuck Krantz. Told in reverse chronological order, the story begins near the end as Chuck starts noticing his face mysteriously appearing on billboards while stars start disappearing from the sky. The story then flashes back to earlier points in Chuck’s life: him dancing with a girl as a drummer busks and him as a child growing up, developing a love of dancing, and foreseeing an image of his own death.
Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck
The Life of Chuck isn’t the first time Mike Flanagan’s adapted a King work into a movie; the director had previously adapted King’s 1992 novel Gerald’s Game in 2017 and 2013 novel Doctor Sleep (itself a sequel to The Shining) in 2019. While both of those were horror movies adapted from horror novels, Flanagan says that he was attracted to “The Life of Chuck” not just for its lightly apocalyptic setting (particularly fitting, as If It Bleeds came out early on during the COVID-19 pandemic) but also for its timeless focus on “‘the moments that bring joy into our lives,'” “‘the importance of being open to those moments,'” and the need to live one’s life fully.
Appearing to be one of the more faithful Stephen King adaptations, the movie adopts the reverse chronological structure of the novella and has its main character Chuck played by different actors, including Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Cody Flanagan, and Jacob Tremblay, at different stages of his life. In an interview with The Wrap, Hiddleston said that the film shows how the life, personal relationships, and emotional experiences of one person “‘can represent all of our lives'” and how every human life “‘contains multitudes.'” On Instagram, Mark Hamill, who plays Chuck’s grandfather Albie, said that the “‘feel-good apocalypse movie'” is “‘unlike anything Mike & Stephen have ever done before.'”
Early Critical Reviews of the Adaptation
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On Friday, September 6, King took to X to praise The Life of Chuck as “one of the good” adaptations of his work. He noted that the novella and the film are not something that fans would expect from him. Stating that both works contained “a touch of the paranormal,” he said that they were “sad” but also “joyful and life-affirming.” King’s praise is a good sign for book and movie fans that have heard King’s disdain and expressed their own for many not-so-good and terrible adaptations of his work.
Several film critics who saw the movie at TIFF have shared King’s enthusiasm for the movie. Both Chase Hutchinson of The Wrap and Jason Gorber of Collider have praised the movie’s emotional and existential depth and delicate blend of joy and melancholy wrapped up in the life of one person. They also both write that the movie could claim the title of the best Stephen King adaptation ever made.
Final Thoughts
Adapting a literary work into a movie always carries some risk due to the nature of adaptations. Filmmakers often have to cut out, condense, or reinterpret certain elements in a book in order to fit the structure of a movie while still finding ways to get the tones and themes of a book across using techniques specific to movies. Some adaptations are very faithful to their source material, some balance elements from the source material with new elements specific to the movie, and some have barely anything from over from the source material. There are plenty of examples of all three types of adaptations that were critical and commercial successes and others that were utter failures.
Stephen King and his fans have seen many of his works adapted into movies whose receptions varied from being widely regarded as terrible to being seen as okay but not living up to the book to being considered some of the greatest movies ever made. Thus far, The Life of Chuck has received high praise from both King and movie critics for its deep themes and life-affirming nature. While there’s no release date available for the movie so general audiences can see whether the film lives up to King’s and the critics’ assessments, the praise it’s received so far seems to be a promising sign that audiences will also enjoy The Life of Chuck.
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