Summary
A tender, time-reversed mosaic that honours the humanity in Stephen King’s work, and offers a ode to life itself.
Mike Flanagan just gets Stephen King. Having previously adapted Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, and now holding the television rights to The Dark Tower opus, he understands that King’s work isn’t about the horror, it’s about the people experiencing it. That insight is essential to THE LIFE OF CHUCK, a story told in reverse.
Based on the 2020 novella from If It Bleeds, Flanagan’s screenplay follows King’s original three-act structure. We open on the end of the world. Teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is watching civilisation collapse: the Internet dies, California sinks into the sea, cities are ablaze. Amid the chaos, he and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) begin spotting strange billboards and ads all over town: Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck! The world unravels, but the ads only multiply.
In the second act, we meet Chuck (Tom Hiddleston), a genial accountant who is blissfully unaware of his own mortality. In one spontaneous moment, he bursts into dance to the rhythm of a street drummer. As the story winds backward, we glimpse his younger self (Jacob Tremblay), learning to dance with his grandmother Sarah (Mia Sara) and studying math(s) under his grandfather Albie (a quietly excellent Mark Hamill), who fears the ghosts that haunt the house’s cupola and may just glimpse the future.
On paper, these might seem like loosely connected vignettes, and they are. But that’s precisely the point. A life is a series of fragmented moments. By telling them in reverse, under the steady narration of Nick Offerman, Flanagan reveals the cosmic connections and quiet patterns that shape a person’s existence.
When King published the novella mid-pandemic in 2020, he described it as “presented in reverse order, like a film running backwards.” This is perhaps why Flanagan is able to translate it so seamlessly to the screen. Each chapter could function as a standalone short, just as King’s original sections almost feel like separate pieces. Yet only when we reach the final act, set in Chuck’s childhood, does the full picture snap into focus. The message is clear: you can only understand life’s meaning by viewing all the flaws and joys as a whole.
This structure gives each act space to breathe, showcasing the stacked ensemble cast in unexpected ways. One standout scene late in the film sees elderly mortician Sam (Carl Lumbly) talk with Marty about the quiet, comforting truths of mathematics. But the blissful core lies in a central dance sequence between Hiddleston and Annalise Basso, a stranger who joins Chuck in an unplanned moment of joy. It’s nestled between heavier chapters, but the joy lingers. Like life, the light moments stay with us as readily as the dark.
Flanagan’s adaptation joins Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption as one of the great humanist Stephen King films, an ode to the fleeting, beautiful nature of existence. It’s a quietly stunning film, and like Chuck himself, it contains multitudes.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Mike Flanagan | WRITERS: Mike Flanagan (based on the novella by Stephen King) | CAST: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Carl Lumbly, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Mark Hamill | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, NEON (USA), STUDIOCANAL (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025), 6 June 2025 (USA), 21 August 2025 (Australia)
