Hollywood Buried Mike Flanagan's Life of Chuck Fast

After winning the People's Choice Award at TIFF last year (which usually signals Oscar buzz), distributor NEON sat on the film for nine months and dumped it outside awards season. That makes Chuck only the third TIFF winner in 15 years not to even land a Best Picture nomination.

Which is baffling, because this movie had heat. It's based on a set of Stephen King stories from If It Bleeds, features a wild reverse-chronological structure, and has a stacked cast: Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Jacob Tremblay. The story starts with Chuck's death and rewinds through his life—ending with his childhood in a possibly haunted house.

Flanagan fans are fully on board, and Cahiers du Cinéma even called it a "masterpiece." But reviews overall were more muted—68 on Metacritic—and projections for its theatrical release this weekend are bleak. The marketing? Almost nonexistent. Barely a trailer, no YouTube ads, and posters buried in theater lobbies. As one viewer put it, "Those movies typically have wider appeal. I've seen next to no marketing for this one."

The movie itself is full of ideas—some poignant, some heavy-handed. Flanagan leans into emotion hard, and depending on your taste, it either works or gets schmaltzy fast.

Even fans who liked it admitted it's "not quite Spielberg," and "kind of grasps for something big, but lands with a thud." Others loved it unconditionally. One audience member said simply, "Chuck was excellent."

Another avoidable issue? The R rating. It's only rated R for language—specifically, a few casual "fucks." Several people pointed out that if they'd trimmed the profanity, it could've pulled a PG-13 and maybe reached a broader audience—especially for a film that leans more Big Fish or Forrest Gump than edgy indie drama. As one commenter put it:

"Instead of appealing to whatever commercial audience there is for a movie in the spirit of Big Fish or Forrest Gump, it will get overlooked as indie arthouse, which it most definitely is not."

Also, for anyone expecting a Tom Hiddleston showcase… heads up: he's in about a third of the movie. Great in it, but definitely not the lead all the trailers seemed to promise.

Still, Flanagan is hardly down and out. He's got a fiercely loyal fanbase thanks to Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Fall of the House of Usher. His next gig is a reboot of The Exorcist for Blumhouse, and a Carrie TV series that starts shooting this summer.

So no, The Life of Chuck isn't a disaster. It's a weird, heartfelt, slightly messy film that won a major festival and then got dropped like a hot potato by the people who were supposed to champion it. And whether you think it's a flawed gem or just a noble swing, it deserved better than being buried alive.