Tom Petty was right — the waiting is the hardest part.
That’s the lesson from The Life of Chuck, now playing at Robinson Film Center. The film is based on a short story by Stephen King.
The story is set up as a three-act play that starts with its third act. Tom Hiddleston plays Chuck Krantz, a seemingly normal guy. Act Three, “Thanks Chuck,” opens with the world seemingly falling apart — no internet, earthquakes, sinkholes, real end-of-days disaster kinds of stuff. But here is Chuck, who is being celebrated, apparently for no other reason than working 39 years as an accountant. He is the Oz of the Apocalypse.
In Act Two, “Buskers Forever,” Chuck shows that he is not as normal as he might appear. He wows an audience with an inspired street dance. When the busker drummer asks him why he stopped to listen and why he started to dance, he mysteriously has no answer. But life for Chuck “is narrower than what he once hoped for.” And that’s why he is an accountant and not a dancer.
Act One, “I Contain Multitudes,” goes back into Chuck’s childhood and explores love and loss and dreams. Raised by his grandparents, Chuck learns to dance from his grandmother (Mia Sara) and learns accounting from his grandfather (Mark Hamill). But his grandfather also guards a secret that, once Chuck discovers, changes the way he looks at his life. And, just maybe, it explains why got out there and danced.
Yeah, I left some questions unanswered. Life is full of unanswered questions. You need to see the movie to find those answers. You need to see it because, like Chuck, you “contain multitudes.”
- Scott “Scooter” Anderson, Scooter Anderson Communications