The Life of Chuck (2025)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Thanks, Chuck

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

I would like to tell you about the very special new movie The Life of Chuck, but I don't exactly know how to begin. It's based on a Stephen King novella and directed by Mike Flanagan. Flanagan previously made the films Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep from King's works, but this one is nothing like those. It hits a little closer to The Shawshank Redemption than The Shining. It's divided into three parts, and those parts are told backward, i.e. part three is first and part one is last, sort of like Memento, but not at all like Memento. When it ends, things may not be exactly clear, but after ruminating on it for a couple of days, I think I understand what it was trying to do, although there are aspects I'm still pondering. And it may be a life-changer, or at least a life-resetter.

The first part (Part 3), is a weird one. It seems to be set at the end times, which looks very much like our present. The internet is down, perhaps this time for good. Volcanos are erupting, sinkholes are appearing on main street, and California has fallen into the ocean. Traffic is so jammed up that people have abandoned their cars. And, everywhere you look, there are signs that celebrate "39 great years" of Charles Krantz, with "thanks Chuck!" No one seems to know who this is. Teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is trying to conduct business as usual with dwindling classes and complacent parents. (David Dastmalchian plays one morose parent in a particularly great scene.)

At home, Marty has a phone call with his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan), talking about stuff that's going on. Marty tells her about Carl Sagan's timeline, i.e. how events would fall if the 15 billion-year history of the universe were condensed into one calendar year. I can't say much more about this story, and so we should progress to the second part, which actually is Part 2. Narrator Nick Offerman (who narrates all three segments) introduces us to three key characters. We meet Taylor (The Pocket Queen, a.k.a. Taylor Gordon), who sets up her drum kit for a day of busking. We meet Janice (Annalise Basso), who has just been unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend. And we meet Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) an accountant in town for a convention.

Chuck walks by the drummer, and something makes him stop. Then something makes him start to dance. And then something makes him extend his hand to Janice, inviting her to join him. They dance together, a crowd gathering. It's a moment of pure joy, all three players synced by rhythm and movement, and that joy spreads to all who experience it. The trio spends the rest of the day together, perhaps unwilling to let go of the wonder they experienced. The third part (Part 1), introduces us to young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) who loses his parents and an unborn sister to an accident and goes to live with his grandparents, Sarah (Mia Sara) and Albie (Mark Hamill). And that's as much as I want to say on this section, although it has its share of magical moments too.

Now, with the story out of the way, I'm still not exactly sure how to proceed. The movie is a miracle for some of the same reasons that The Shawshank Redemption means so much to so many; it's an uncynical look at what the meaning of life might be, coming from two creators whose usual modus operandi is to explore the darkness and the creepy things that live there. The Life of Chuck takes a little more effort to unpack than Shawshank, but all the clues are there, and perhaps viewers come to the same conclusions that I did. (Or, perhaps, they may come to their own.) Like Shawshank, the takeaway here is not overly complex, and indeed, is relatively simple. Given that the story was published in the collection If It Bleeds during COVID lockdown, and given that the movie is being released in similarly dark, Trumpian times, it's a doubly reflective movie that cuts through the noise and gets to the heart of things.