“Det er ganske sandt, hvad Philosophien siger, at Livet maa forstaaes baglaends. Men derover glemmer man den anden Saetning, at det maa leves forlaends.” Søren Kierkegaard’s most famous quote is clumsily translated and truncated into English as “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” That’s part of why Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 2020 novella, The Life of Chuck, begins with Act 3, “Thanks, Chuck.” Here, as in the original print version, it’s the end of the story, but also the end of the world. California is falling into the ocean, Pornhub is offline, and kids aren’t going to school. Luckily, amid this mayhem, Chuck Krantz is retiring.
Who is Chuck Krantz? That’s a minor concern to most people, who are more worried about this calm apocalypse. Yet it’s a mild and growing source of interest to high school teacher Marty Anderson (Ejiofor), who wonders why anyone would put up a billboard thanking some random guy who looks like an accountant for 39 great years.
And while the resolution of Act 3 may be the end of the story, it’s not the end of the film, or of the uncovering of who Chuck is. Traveling backwards, through Act 2 to Act 1, through a mosaic of dance and love and sadness and memories and Walt Whitman, Chuck is slowly revealed. Those revelations are not about some grand mystery, but instead about details. Flanagan and King are not creating shocks or scares, but a portrait. As sporadically and obtusely explained by the voice of narrator Nick Offerman, the story here is of a man whose life can only be understood backwards but is finally revealed in all its small pains and joys. Ecce Homo, indeed.
Across his film and TV career, Flanagan has assembled a formidable troupe of regulars and many of them return here, including Rahul Kohli (The Fall of the House of Usher, Midnight Mass) and Karen Gillan (Oculus). But even by his standards this is an immense ensemble, supplemented by memorable newcomers including a quite wonderful brief turn from Matthew Lillard that redefines the whole story. Moreover, there are actors weaving in and out of what turn out to be multiple parts, while Chuck himself is portrayed by multiple actors: first by Hiddleston as the face on the billboard, but then by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, and Jacob Tremblay as the boy who becomes a teen and will finally become the man at the end of the world.
Somewhat surprisingly, Hiddleston in some ways has the least to do of all four, but his selection as the adult Chuck is perfect casting. He can be effortlessly charismatic – after all, it’s how he transformed Loki from the villain of Marvel’s The Avengers to the begrudging hero of his Disney+ series. But The Life of Chuck also accesses the bourgeois mediocrity he so adroitly displayed in Ben Wheatley’s High Rise. He captures how there is nothing extraordinary about Chuck, and that’s what makes the story extraordinary.
Inevitably, there are King’s signature tics of cosmic weirdness and a mysterious door, and Flanagan has handled the horror master’s gorier tendencies in his earlier King adaptations, Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, so the inexplicable R rating might lead you to believe those elements are present here. Yet this is a story of gentleness, of kindness in a darkening universe. The Life of Chuck is not so much about raging at the dying of the light but about how we embrace the inevitability of death and the wonder of what comes before. It’s blockbuster metaphysics, a twinkle in the eye of the infinite.
This article appears in June 6 • 2025.
