Film Fest Review: The Life of Chuck

I, like many other SCAD students, saw Mark Hamill’s name on the Film Fest 2025 attendance list and instantly wanted to grab tickets to the event he would be honored at. I anticipated the event without even really looking at the movie that would be screening. I hadn’t researched the film even as I was sitting at the Lucas Theater. Therefore, I watched “The Life of Chuck”, a film based on a novel by the iconic Stephen King, knowing absolutely nothing about it beforehand, and I am so glad it happened that way.

“The Life of Chuck” is structured in a very unorthodox way, with the third act playing first, followed by the second and the first act after that. I have to say my favorite was the third act, the very first thing I saw. The act follows a teacher and his ex-wife as they come to terms with the fact that the world is literally ending. Natural disasters are destroying the entire planet, the internet has completely gone out along with cell service, and people are fleeing their jobs and lives to cope with the end of the world. At the same time, an uncanny ad is up around town with a description, “Thank You Chuck for 39 Great Years.” The whole act is very dystopian and at times, very creepy. It ends with the two main characters holding hands as they watch every star and planet in the galaxy burst into nothing until eventually Earth does as well. This act ended, leaving me with so many questions. I had no idea what type of film I was getting into, but I was hooked by the end of this act, and I wanted all of my questions answered. Why was this weird ad everywhere? Was this going to be a supernatural film?

Moving on to act two, the story follows our real main character, Chuck, as he spontaneously chooses to dance with a stranger to a drum beat in the middle of a public shopping center. The pair have fantastic moves and create a truly serendipitous moment. Tom Hiddleston who plays Chuck, dazzles in his dance performance in this act. It is in this act that you truly start to understand what this movie is actually about, as the narrator reveals that Chuck has brain cancer and will die just a few months after Act 2 takes place. 

On that note, I have to talk about the narration in this movie. A large chunk of the film is narrated by Nick Offerman. The narration is used to reveal backstory about each character shown, as well as to reveal their inner monologue and emotions. It often brought humor into the film as well, just by the way that Offerman delivered certain lines. The narrator was truly a character in this film, and it was done in a way you don’t see often in recent films. I loved it. 

Moving on to the first act, the rest of Chuck’s story is fully revealed. This act follows his childhood, and it is also where Mark Hamill’s character comes into play, with him taking on the role of Chuck’s grandfather. It is here you get to see how Chuck began dancing as a young boy, and you hear all about his tragic childhood with his parents, unborn sister, and then eventually his grandparents all passing away before he was eighteen. This act is also where they introduce the idea that the grandpa, and eventually Chuck, were able to see deaths before they occurred when they went upstairs to the attic of the home Chuck grew up in. This movie truly did throw a lot at you, if you couldn’t tell already. 

All this to say, this is where it becomes very clear that the third act of the film was all just the way that Chuck’s brain was coping with his death at the end of the brain tumor’s course. The world was not actually ending, but rather, Chuck’s world was. Everything inside his brain, every thought and experience, was coming to an end. What an absolutely interesting way to explore a simple businessman’s death. I loved this film; I thought it was thought-provoking and unique in the way it portrayed brain cancer. I am thankful that my love for Star Wars is, oddly enough, what brought me to watch this movie, as I had never heard of it before, even though it came out in 2024 and starred Tom Hiddleston. I wish they had done more advertising for a work like this, as I believe it deserves to be seen.

All in all, the performances were great, the story and sequences were unusual but very engaging, and the overall feeling the movie left me with all contributed to me loving this movie, and I highly recommend it for a weekend watch! I’m so grateful Film Fest pushes me to see films I wouldn’t normally watch, and we at RenderQ can’t wait to keep seeing more and more this week!