Life of Chuck

This week we’re listening to the official trailer for the 2024 TIFF People’s Choice Award-winning film The Life of Chuck, directed by Mike Flanagan, based on a 2020 Stephen King novella. The trailer opens with a 5-second micro-teaser which shows the author of this story is Stephen King, but it's not horror. The micro-teaser is accompanied by a triumphant orchestral chord and percussion flourishes on the beat which align with the visual cuts, while we get glimpses of main characters including adult Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) dancing joyfully, and Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) laughing.

Immediately after the micro-teaser, we hear crickets, and a voiceover from Chuck’s grandfather Albie (Mark Hamill) begins, accompanied by long tones on a synthesizer evoking a choir of voices. The sound of Hamill’s voice should be familiar to anyone who knows Mike Flanagan’s directorial work. At 0:22, over a happy major chord from orchestral strings, Stephen King’s name fades in on the screen, and here again, the music is telling us that this is an uplifting story.

Up until 0:33 there has been a series of slow chords without a clear pulse, then we see a close up of a drummer playing an accented note on a cowbell, which sets off a series of bass drum notes that sync with intertitles on screen listing other Stephen King novels that have been adapted into notable films. Here again the trailer seeks to highlight Stephen King’s diversity of genres, by listing a film like The Shawshank Redemption rather than the many horror stories with which his name is synonymous.

Albie Krantz’s advice to his grandson is heard as a voiceover for the first half of the trailer, from 0:13-0:49, then at 0:50, we cut to the scene that Albie’s monologue comes from, and we finally see Albie on screen delivering the last line, “You have hope in you,” at which point the music cuts out.

At 0:53 a whooshing riser tone brings in the full orchestra with a crash of cymbals. A new voiceover enters at 1:00, now presumably from Chuck’s grandmother, giving comforting advice. The music continues with epic and triumphant-sounding chords. There isn’t much of a pulse to the music, but we see Chuck’s mother dancing to the beat of the music at 1:03 and then we cut to adult Chuck doing the same dance move years later, still on beat with the trailer’s music. It’s subtle, but the synching here does help give the trailer continuity. At 1:08 we hear accents from the drums, and then at 1:10 we see the drummer (Taylor Gordon) hit an accent on a cymbal in sync with the trailer’s music.

From 1:36-1:44 the music uses trailer triplets to highlight the cuts to intertitles that show cast names. At 1:45 the music hits one last triumphant chord, leaving space for a final turn phrase from Chuck’s grandmother. One concluding chord swells as we see the film’s title card align on screen at 1:49.

The music in this trailer is very minimalist, mostly relying on a wash of orchestral and synthesizer chords to give an uplifting, floating feeling, as a background texture behind two extended voiceovers. It’s different from typical approaches to trailer music, but it is effective, and it certainly works in underscoring (pun intended) the non-horror genre nature of this Stephen King film, while demonstrating that a cover song isn’t always needed (or wanted).

The Life of Chuck is in theatres June 13.

— Jack Hui Litster