Stephen King’s influence on American storytelling is so vast and omnipresent that it’s almost hard to quantify. His characters, his monsters, his macabre iconography - they’ve all become stitched into the very fabric of our culture’s collective fears. But those who have spent any real time with King’s writing know he’s always been just as concerned with life as he is with death. Behind every haunted house and demonic presence, every cursed object and small-town killer, there’s also something delicate - something human and full of wonder. That’s what keeps people coming back to him: not the horror, but the hope.
Mike Flanagan understands that duality better than anyone currently adapting King’s work. He’s shown it time and again, from the emotionally raw Gerald’s Game to the miraculous balancing act of Doctor Sleep - a film that never should’ve worked, but did. Flanagan has become the filmmaker most attuned to the soul of King’s writing, to the tender observations and moments of clarity that lie beneath all the bloodshed and dread. With The Life of Chuck, he’s finally been handed a story that puts all of that front and center - no monsters, no slashers, no jump scares. Just a man’s life, and the extraordinary beauty that resides within it.
Based on the three-part novella from King’s If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck is a deeply strange and deeply moving film, one that arrives at a time when it feels like the world really might be ending; for real this time. And it begins that way, too - with the sky quite literally falling and society on the brink of collapse. Stars blinks out, power grids fail, and the internet vanishes. But amidst the chaos, people begin noticing something curious: billboards and online ads start displaying a tribute to a man named Charles Krantz - Chuck - celebrating 39 “great years.”
That’s where Flanagan begins, at the end. The film unfolds in reverse chronological order, moving backward through Chuck’s life: from his deathbed in a hospital surrounded by his loved ones, to a spontaneous dance sequence on a nondescript street, and eventually all the way back to the innocence of a young child in a haunted old house. The nonlinear structure is less about piecing together a puzzle and more about asking us to reflect on the totality of a life - not through what Chuck did, necessarily, but what he meant to the people around him - and them to him.
There’s a looseness to the film’s narrative, an embrace of metaphor and abstraction that may throw off audiences expecting something more conventional. But Flanagan leans into the elliptical structure, taking each segment as its own small meditation on connection, memory, and how we define a life and legacy. It's an ambitious and unapologetically earnest film, more akin to something like Synecdoche, New York or The Fountain than anything else King has had adapted. And that’s what makes it special.
Tom Hiddleston gives one of the best, understated performances of his career as Chuck, infusing every (limited) scene he’s in with a quiet, lived-in vulnerability. He’s especially wonderful in the film’s middle segment, where Chuck’s chance encounter with a street performer (played by Taylor Gordon) and a heartbroken young woman (Annalise Basso) turns into a full-blown, music-fueled celebration of simply being alive. It’s one of the film’s most inexplicably magical moments, and Hiddleston plays it like a man who’s genuinely in awe of the world around him. Karen Gillan and Chiwetwel Ejiofor bring a grounded warmth that helps anchor the emotional stakes of the first act, and Flanagan regulars like Kate Siegel and Samantha Sloyan pop in for memorable roles as the movie flits through time.
What’s so striking about The Life of Chuck is how unconcerned it is with explaining itself. The apocalyptic framing device isn’t literal so much as it is emotional. The world is ending because Chuck’s world is ending - because someone’s world is always ending. The billboards celebrating his life aren’t meant to be read as science fiction, but as spiritual metaphor. This isn’t about what happens after we die; it’s about what it means to have lived.
Flanagan and cinematographer Eben Bolter (The Last of Us) shoot the film with a painterly softness, trading in the dark shadows of his previous horror works for warm hues and dreamy transitions. There’s a theatricality to it all, and the film doesn’t hide its stagey, episodic roots. At times, it can feel almost like a series of short films strung together by theme rather than plot. But taken as a whole, it’s an emotionally overwhelming experience - especially in the film’s closing moments (or rather, its beginning), where a young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) has a fleeting, formative encounter with death that ties the entire story together.
Some viewers will undoubtedly be frustrated by The Life of Chuck’s resistance to traditional storytelling. It doesn’t build in the way most narratives do. It meanders. It indulges. It asks for patience and emotional openness. But for those willing to meet it on its wavelength, the rewards are profound. This is a film that dares to say: what if a quiet, unassuming life is just as worthy of being mythologized as any epic tale of good vs. evil? What if the small things -a dance, a smile, a simple conversation - are actually the most important parts?
King may be best known for his ghosts and monsters, but The Life of Chuck proves that his most powerful stories have always come from a place of love. And with Flanagan once again serving as translator, the message comes through loud and clear: there is beauty in the world, even as it ends.
'The Life of Chuck' is now playing in theaters.
