I did not go to the festival expecting to see the People’s Choice Winner. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t because I focused on films without release dates. This usually means films without distributors, and the last time a film won the People’s Choice Award without distribution was in 2011. This makes The Life of Chuck, from filmmaker Mike Flanagan based on a short story by Stephen King, an outlier. Which is fitting, because no one expects this type of film when they see the names Stephen King or Mike Flanagan attached. People mostly associate horror with King and Flanagan, but The Life of Chuck is no horror. There is a science fiction element, though, I would argue it is a fairly light one and can be viewed more spiritually depending on how one wishes to take the lesson from Miss Richards (played by Kate Siegel) or the ghost of Christmas Future stuff Albie Krantz (played by Mark Hamill). And, despite the apocalyptic opening of the filming, the heart of the film is about embracing life.
The film, as the title suggests, is about the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz (played by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, and Tom Hiddleston). Not told linearly, but rather driven thematically by emotion, the film begins, as previously mentioned, near the end, during apocalyptic events that are made supernatural with ads congratulating Chuck Krantz on 39 years. But who is Chuck Krantz? That’s the question on everyone’s mind as the end of the world nears and our first glimpses of him are in these ads. It is ominous. But then we go back and meet Chuck on a random day as something inspires him to dance to a street drummer and grab a woman in the audience to dance with him. And this scene is anything but ominous. It is pure joy. Tom Hiddleston can dance. It’s a shame that so many theatre kids don’t get to display all their talents anymore because we do not incorporate as much dance into film anymore. People will joke that this scene alone is what secured the film its People’s Choice Award win, and while I do think it is in jest, there is some water to Toronto audiences responding well to dance numbers (La La Land and Slumdog Millionaire). However, this number serves as a link to the past, because while the Chuck of that present did not know why he danced that day, the Chuck that just lost his parents (played by Cody Flanagan) was going to discover his love of dance through watching old movies and dancing with his grandmother.
Chuck grows up, his actors change, and he experiences more loss (and more dancing). We hear him get a lecture on statistics from his grandfather about career odds in dancing (why he should be an accountant) though, we already know from the start of the film that he becomes an accountant, but we also know that he dances again. So, despite how harsh this scene is, as we have that scene of Tom Hiddleston dancing, showing that he embraced dance again later in life, even if just once, even if just for a moment, we know he still carries it with him, so it loses some of the edge. Because we know he won’t give dance up completely, and that like Miss Richards taught him about, he contains multitudes, his life had multitudes.
Some festival prognosticators did not see The Life of Chuck as a possibility for winning the People’s Choice Award. But, as someone who has grown up on the festival, when it received an additional screening, I knew it was in the running. When I saw it, I knew it had pretty good odds, because it is a movie that leaves you feeling good.
The Life of Chuck still doesn’t have distribution, all eyes will be on it over the next month to see if it manages to get an award-season qualifying run this year or if TIFF’s People’s Choice winning streaking Best Picture nominee streak starts over again from 2012.
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