It’s nearly impossible to remain stoic and jaded in the face of someone who is dancing like no one’s watching. And in his new film, “The Life of Chuck,” writer-director Mike Flanagan is betting that even the most weary viewer will be charmed by the sight of Tom Hiddleston busting a move in the middle of the street. The film comes courtesy of the softer side of Stephen King, adapted from a story in his 2020 collection of novellas, “If It Bleeds.” And while Flanagan is no stranger to adapting King’s works — having tackled “Gerald’s Game” and “Doctor Sleep” (to varying results) — “The Life of Chuck” is not a thriller or a horror, but rather a slice of feel-good optimism. But that doesn’t mean the film is devoid of scares, oh no. In fact, “The Life of Chuck” makes the most terrifying assertion of the summer so far: Twee is headed for a revival.
Watching the expertly choreographed, extended dance scene in the film’s middle act, it’s difficult to stop the brain from wandering back in time to the 2000s, when this kind of sequence was common in twee staples like “(500) Days of Summer” and “Napoleon Dynamite.” But in case you experienced a head injury by sticking your head out of a moving vehicle after reading Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Flanagan’s film is here to bring the twee movement back for a new, precarious age. After Chbosky’s 1999 book sold millions of copies and inked countless infinity sign tattoos, twee art hit the market hard, marked by characters who were both precious and precocious, determined to be their own person no matter who disagreed; think “Juno,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and almost everything Miranda July, Wes Anderson and Zooey Deschanel did between the years 2001 and 2012. The message of these films was often that, no matter how difficult things get, everything will be alright in the end if you persevere.
