The Life of Chuck 4K 2024 Ultra HD 2160p

The plot combines three stories related to the death of a man named Charles Kranz. He dies at the age of 39 from brain cancer and suddenly begins to live his life in reverse.

User Review

I respect Stephen King, but Mike Flanagan is a magician. He made me forget about time—the 1 hour and 50 minutes that is the length of the film Chuck's Life flew by unnoticed. It was as if I had seen someone's beautiful and disturbing dream. He made me forget that I was familiar with the text—the world created by the director was so fascinating and full of life that I was completely captivated by it. It made me forget that I was familiar with the main plot of the literary Life of Chuck—Mike Flanagan is so uninterested in creating artificial effects associated with unexpected twists. But what is really important to him is the atmosphere of inspiration that fills the film from the very first frame to the very last. It is a song, or rather a dance, learned long ago in my grandmother's kitchen, reinforced in a school club, and then, decades later, resurfacing in my memory as an improvisation, a miracle of the moment that brought together the memories of several strangers into one. This film is dedicated to this special state of mind—inspiration—which is very important to me, something I simply cannot live without. Therefore, I had no choice but to fall in love with Chuck's Life. Which I did.

About inspiration. I'll start with Stephen King and the fact that we all, intentionally or indirectly, inspire each other. I am sure that the inspiration for writing “The Life of Chuck” (from the 2020 collection “Let There Be Blood”) was Ian Reid's novel “I Think I'll Kill Myself” (2016). The story contains two important elements of its predecessor: an apocalyptic atmosphere and a family home with a secret room. Perhaps King was fascinated by the Canadian writer's dark style, but wanted to tell the story in his own way, without the depressing sarcasm. Therefore, the secret room in the family home is located not in the basement, but in the attic, in a turret, and the story itself moves from the end to the beginning, which does not diminish Charles Kranz's suffering, but gives the story itself a more sentimental (in a good way) tone. For me, King's story was interesting precisely because of the harmony of ideas and the fact that King was able to see the positive in the life of an ordinary person who never became a creator.

Mike Flanagan undoubtedly loves Stephen King, but he tells his stories in his own style. I am not well versed in technical terms to determine what cinematographic techniques Flanagan uses, but there is something in his films, I want to say, that is air, but it's more about weightlessness, and in Flanagan's work you can feel a density, something more related to how he knows how to create the sky — something between dream and reality, and in Chuck's Life, this sky fills the entire space from corner to corner. And Flanagan also has his own stopwatch, which counts down the rhythm of the storyboard—it's not the drawn-out nature of auteur cinema, but it's also not the clip-based thinking of the mainstream. That's why there's a voiceover in Chuck's Life—it emphasizes Charles Kranz's borderline state—is he a creator or a character, a dream or reality? It also refers to the great past of American cinema—to the works of Frank Capra and the musicals of Gene Kelly. Flanagan has the potential to be a great director, not just one who is iconic for a particular genre (horror films).

A little about the plot. It consists of three acts. In the first, we witness the end of the world. The network goes down, and a wave of disasters engulfs the earth. Against this backdrop, two exes, schoolteacher Chiwetel Ejiofor and nurse Karen Gillan, decide to quietly reunite, while David Dastmalchian (the king of cameos) mourns either the departure of his wife or the disappearance of Pornhub. This act is most reminiscent of “I'm Thinking of Ending Things,” and “The Life of Chuck” also has this dreamlike surrealism (my favorite episode is when the streetlights suddenly go out and images of Charles Kranz glow in the windows). In the second act, Tom Hiddleston, a super talented actor who's sadly underused in big movies (Marvel doesn't count), performs an inspired dance, and in the third, we delve into the childhood of Charles Crantz (played by three actors of different ages), who lost his parents and is now being raised by his zeide and bobbe (grandfather and grandmother). Benjamin Pajac and Jacob Tremblay (who, by the way, voiced Orion in Charlie Kaufman's “Orion and the Darkness,” another shout-out to “I'm Thinking of Ending Things”) did a great job with their roles. Benjamin has more screen time, and his dance under the open night sky after the school prom is a miracle of miracles, but my attention is drawn to the figures of the grandmother and grandfather, or rather, those who played them.

Mark Hamill is inextricably linked to Star Wars, while Mia Sara began her career in John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Why do they catch my attention? Because their personalities directly resonate with the mood of the film Chuck's Life. It is a film completely devoid of the cynicism and trauma of modern cinema, which I personally associate with my childhood. Such heartfelt stories about ordinary people were made in the 80s and 90s. These are the kinds of films I watched as a child. Why films like Chuck's Life have become rare today is a mystery to me. It is all the more pleasing that Flanagan does not go with the flow, but professes his love for his favorite cinema through Chuck's Life, while also continuing to develop this cinema language that has lost its voice, so that perhaps someone else will listen to it in the future. Listen and be inspired to create something of their own.

And here, I may be repeating myself, but I want to circle back to this line of inspiration... If Stephen King's story was primarily an idea—a counterpoint to Ian Reid's pessimism—and ends where everything is just beginning, then Mike Flanagan, following King's sequence of acts, has managed to create such a poetic atmosphere that knows no boundaries—no beginning and no end. That's why my attention is drawn to the center—that improvised dance involving a red-haired girl who was dumped by her boyfriend and a talented drummer. They, too, each consist of many parts. Including Charles Kranz. He will always live on in their memories. Like a spark of inspiration. And so on and on—in our imagination, we move from one to the other. And that's wonderful.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (79.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10+
Aspect ratio: 2.09:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1, 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
#English: FLAC 2.0 (Commentary by Director & Writer Mike Flanagan)

Info Subtitles