Someone who can be said to be a fan of horror is Mike Flanagan. The seven films he’s directed, written and edited have been horrors, with his last, Doctor Sleep, an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining prequel.

He returns to King for his eighth film, but choosing to adapt one of his more curious short stories, where the director finally moves on from the horror genre for something far more life affirming.

The world is in a terrible state, with environmental disasters happening all over that world, including the state of California disappearing completely off of the map. Worse still there’s no internet, which for many, is an even worse sign the end of the world is nigh.

Teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) struggles motivating his classes as it is, without the destruction of the end of the world adding to it. It’s a strange time, made more so when Marty notices a billboard in town that exclaims “Charles Krantz: 39 Great years! Thanks, Chuck!”

It’s not an isolated sign either, as Marty starts to see these signs saying the same thing all over town, which makes him think, what does it all mean and who is this Chuck?

Flanagan may well be out of his horror comfort zone, but he proves, once again, that he has the smarts for adapting King’s work with this wondrous film.

It’s told in three acts, starting with the last first, which sees the end of the world, and then we see the rest of Chuck’s life shown in reverse.

It’s an interesting technique, that although doesn’t completely work, it creates an interesting world for its characters to exist in. It takes on a lot, such as the wonders of the universe, life and death, as well as the power of dance, and exceeds in keeping things intriguing at all times.

Tom Hiddleston, who plays grown up Chuck, steals the show with an upbeat scene, but isn’t necessarily the star of the film. His character does track back however, with three other actors also playing younger versions of Chuck. And it’s perhaps with this reverse transition where the film lacks a certain amount of cohesion; audiences may well get to know about the life of Chuck in doing so – as the title implies – but the film does get less interesting the further back it goes.

It doesn’t help that the third act, which we see first, is the most interesting, and that Chuck, in all his various age iterations, is probably the weakest character in the film, which isn’t ideal. He can dance, for sure, but there’s very little else there to make him interesting enough for an audience to care.

That said, there are some magical scenes, as well as some confusing ones that sees characters return to periods where they probably shouldn’t be, but that only adds to the intrigue.

It’s equal measures life-affirming and baffling, which is a quirky mixture, at times giving off The Curious Case of Benjamin Button vibes, that just loses its momentum towards the first act.

Still, Flanagan proves there’s more to him than going ‘boo’, and although this is a little uneven, he shows just as much promise going forward as he does backwards.