Told in reverse order, The Life of Chuck begins with the third act and ends with the first. This structure, while unconvential, becomes essential to learning about who Chuck is and what he represents.
People like Chuck are superheroes. They are the people who, despite the restrictions of our animal instincts and fearful minds to lean towards joy, are able to be ignorant of those pesky feelings of doubt. It’s a film that wants to scream out about why each of our lives are precious and that our self-conscious awareness of death can actually be a superpower rather than a crutch.
Chuck carves out a unique storytelling structure and its approach to the idea that humans can be most happy knowing they are going to die. This is a story that emphasizes the ways that our movement and choices in the face of certain death is what gives us purpose. Films like Soul and It’s a Wonderful Life have done this too. But none of these are as philosophical and honest as Life of Chuck. Unlike those movies, Chuck allows death to be wholly part of the story. But it takes our knowledge of the end and makes us appreciate every moment that comes before, especially those that come from pure joy.
For artists like Flanagan, joy is often expressed through art. In Soul, Pete Doctor and Kemp Powers express that joy through jazz music. Here, Flanagan uses dance, one of the most complicated or simple ways to express oneself. It’s a form of art that combines the joy of music, the ecstasy of cardio and the bonding of talking into one movement. As we see Chuck dance with people in the film, its like they’re speaking their own language to each other and to the rest of the audience. Flanagan communicates that so well with the framing, allowing the two dancers to dominate the screen while cutting to the crowd around them and capturing an authentic feeling of joy. These are the scenes that encapsulate the point of The Life of Chuck and these are the moments that Chuck remembers when he died.
You get the feeling Flanagan was doing everything in his power to make a film whose feelings of joy and connection would be remembered on your own deathbed. Now, that is an almost impossible ask but every frame and line of this film puts on full display those feelings you would to have for the rest of your life and the ones you’d want to think of as you pass on from this world.
Life of Chuck is playing at TIFF ’24. For more information, click here.
