For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic is the closest thing we’ve felt to the apocalypse, when life as we knew it came to a grinding halt. Many pushed through 2020 by doing what made them happy in an attempt to gain back control of the pre-pandemic life they lost. For filmmakers like Mike Flanagan, this was done by watching several movies and reading books, one of which was the newest novel by his friend and longtime creative inspiration, Stephen King.
“If It Bleeds,” a collection of four novellas written by King, was released in April 2020. Compared to the three other stories in the collection, “The Life of Chuck” is an intellectually challenging outlier with an unorthodox structure. It documents the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz, a humble accountant, loving husband and father, from his childhood to late 30s. It is told in reverse chronological order, beginning with an apocalypse and ending with Chuck’s upbringing. “The Life of Chuck” hit Flanagan the hardest, given how he felt like his own world was ending at the time due to the pandemic. Right away, he emailed King and optioned the film rights for the story. Five years later, his indie film adaptation of “The Life of Chuck” released nationwide in theaters on June 13.
The film is a faithful translation of the source material. It begins with Act Three which, chronologically speaking, is the end of the world. In a civilization riddled by horrific calamities, a formerly married pair of high school teachers named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Felicia (Karen Gillan) attempt to reconcile. As the realization sets in that the end is truly nigh, they observe peculiar adverts thanking Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) for “39 Great Years” and nothing more. No one knows where the ads came from or who the enigmatic Chuck is, but residents are too busy dealing with the end of the world to care.
This opening is startlingly nihilistic for a film that seemed innocent from its motivational trailers and joyful poster which has Chuck dancing at the forefront. Nonetheless, it establishes a clear ethos within the film — that everything contains multitudes. This rhetoric comes from Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” which Chuck read in grade school.
Flanagan and King further explore this concept of multitudes in Act Two by divulging more into Chuck’s life. It revolves around a dance between Chuck and a woman named Janice Halliday (Annalise Basso), which becomes a standout moment of the film as it constantly reminds Chuck of life’s beauty, even during its most banal moments. This notion of how beautiful life can be carries over to Act One, which documents the trials and tribulations Chuck endures throughout his formative years. He lives with his grandparents (Mia Sara and Mark Hamill) and endures common childhood experiences, such as an incessant fear of the unknown and a school crush.
When depicting Chuck’s adolescence, Flanagan fully embraces the sentimental nature of life, which contrasts the bleakness of the first segment. With each new segment, he hones further in on all the subtle quirks and things that make life worth living. Through King’s profound material, Flanagan reaffirms that our existence is something not to be taken for granted; that our world is a gift with a finite amount of time to appreciate, both in terms of our cosmos and the unique internal world within all of us. Like what Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself,” “I am large, I contain multitudes.” King and Flanagan used Chuck as a vessel to portray those multitudes, a universe comprised of connections, memories, music, places and so much more.
It’s this schmaltzy depiction of life that counteracts the graveness of the reality Chuck lives in.
Throughout the film, there are constant reminders that death is inevitable. Beyond the first scene of the movie, Chuck has constant premonitions of loss and grief that, while indecipherable, still shake him to his core. A motif that symbolizes this is the cupola of his grandparents’ Victorian house. One of the only instances of King-ian horror in the film is when Chuck enters this locked cupola, which his grandfather claims is haunted. This forbidden room not only ties directly to Chuck’s premonitions, but also seeks to answer them. But, like the morality within all of us, it’s best not to let the thought of death linger and appreciate life while we have it, as Chuck promises to do himself.
Through Flanagan’s best filmmaking to date, a stellar ensemble cast, a beautiful space-like score and an original storytelling structure, “The Life of Chuck” joins the likes of other life-affirming masterpieces — such as “It’s Such A Beautiful Day” and “The Tree of Life” — as it’s own uniquely staggering exploration of our existence. These films and “The Life of Chuck” remind us of the value we all have, especially with uncertain times looming ahead. While this existential odyssey may be a bit soppy at times, it will at the very least leave you filled with more optimism than you had before seeing it.
Jacob Bernardino is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer for the summer 2025 quarter. He can be reached at bernarj2@uci.edu.
Edited by Corinna Chin, Annabelle Aguirre