THE LAST DANCE

DIRECTOR MIKE FLANAGAN'S MEDITATION ON LIFE AND DEATH SUFFERS FROM AN EMOTIONAL DISCONNECT

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

IN the opening scene of The Life of Chuck, adapted by writer-director Mike Flanagan from one of Stephen King’s previously unpublished novellas, a high school teacher tries in vain to engage his class with a verse of Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself.

“I am large, I contain multitudes,” recites the teacher.

A student interrupts and Whitman’s words hang in the air, by design, and slowly reverberate through this unabashed tearjerker in three parts, recounted in reverse chronological order to withhold the waterworks and regrets until a sombre concluding chapter.

The end is the beginning, and vice versa, which feels apt for a film that ponders mortality and what happens (if anything) to the human spirit after death.