This sci-fi-esque movie begins at the end…with people in a town wondering why the same message is posted on billboards and media everywhere they look. “Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!” No one understands why they keep seeing this ad featuring the photo of a smiling accountant. It’s based on a short story that is more fantasy than horror for Stephen King.
Director Mike Flanagan puts a spotlight on teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife, nurse Felicia Gordon (Karen Gillan). Marty is teaching his high schoolers Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and it’s central theme “I contain multitudes” when phones begin pinging with news of a piece of California breaking off into the ocean. Another of a series of cataclysmic events. As the world and indeed the universe begins falling apart, Marty’s instinct is to find his true love, Felicia.
The centerpiece of the film is in Act 2, nine months before the end of his life. Chuck (Tom Hiddleston- Loki, The Night Manager), an accountant on a business trip, takes center stage and breaks into a magnificent impromptu dance in a Boston plaza accompanied only by the rhythm from a smiling, female busker drummer, Taylor (Taylor Gordon). Chuck is bemused why he performed with such joy and abandon. He is joined by a woman named Janice (Annalise Brasso) moving to the beat, looking for a mood change herself after having just been dumped via text message.
The rest of the movie serves to show us how Chuck came to be that fun-loving dancer, which seems to sum up much of Chuck’s life. It’s so unusual to see Hiddleston put such exuberance and joy on display in a long scene with people circling the dancers. We think it was a defining moment in the film which could become classic to be played repeatedly.
Act 1 is the last part of the movie taking us to Chuck’s childhood where we learn how he got those happy feet. As a child, Chuck at 11, (Benjamin Pajak) learns to dance from his beautiful, musical and fun Grandmother Sarah (Mia Sara) who raised him along with Grandfather Albie (Mark Hamill) after the tragic death of Chuck’s parents. This is a very different role for the Hamill we know from his growing up in so many space adventures Star Wars. With his gray hair and bushy mustache, he looks a little like Pinocchio’s Geppetto.
Mark Hamill’s playing Albie is testament to the versatile and powerful stage and screen actor he’s become over decades. Heartbroken over the sudden loss of his daughter and son-in-law Albie teaches Chuck to respect numbers while also trying to protect his grandson from something awful in the cupola at the top of the stairs. The most recognizable Stephen King element of the story is the locked room Chuck is forbidden to go into at the top of Sarah and Albie’s house which holds terrible secrets. Albie doesn’t want him to see anything in there.
We follow Chuck throughout the film at different times of his life. When he becomes a teen, Chuck at 17, (Jacob Tremblay, The Book of Henry) continues under the influence of his Grandmother Sarah’s true love for music and dancing she did to music even while cooking. He joins the school dance group “Twirlers and Spinners,”under the tutelage of Miss Rohrbacher (Samantha Sloyan). Shy at first, the young Chuck gets on the dance floor with Cat McCoy (Trinity Bliss), a cute girl about a foot taller than he is. They show off, Saturday Night Fever style, the center of attention doing the Moon Walk, in another rousing dance scene. You can’t help but smile.
When his grandparents pass on, Chuck finally can go into the cupola. Although Flanagan and Stephen King have more experience with horror, when Chuck sees what was forbidden, it doesn’t deter him. Instead, leaving Chapter 1 at the end of the film, we’re left with a beautiful life-affirming lesson. You may want to dance.
Neon 1 Hour 51 Minutes R
