When it comes to quality, the combination of Mike Flanagan‘s writing and direction and the foundation of Stephen King stories really is a safe bet, isn’t it? With Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep being solid movies and the looming promise of adaptations of The Mist and The Dark Tower being in the works, Flanagan has become the go-to filmmaker for bringing King’s work to life. There’s no better (or more recent) example of that being the case than last year’s The Life of Chuck.
While it has the branding of King’s name in the credits, it leans more towards The Shawshank Redemption than The Shining when it comes to cinematic equivalencies, forgoing horror and, instead, presenting human drama and feel-good moments. That is, once you get past the fatc that it’s also one of the most somber apocalyptic movies you’ll ever see. To quote Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer, “It’s paradoxical, and yet, it works.”
What Is Stephen King and Mike Flanagan’s ‘The Life of Chuck’ About?
The film is based off of the novella of the same name from Stephen King’s novel If It Bleeds, and it follows the titular Chuck (Tom Hiddleston), as we witness key moments told in reverse chronological order that showcase the heartbreak — but more importantly, the elation and euphoria — that life can bring.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
We also follow a teacher named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he manages his way through an exceedingly morose world that’s seemingly heading towards what may be the end times. Those two characters sound like they’re in two entirely different movies, but the bittersweet message to be gleaned from them, combined with the ending, will have you feeling optimistic rather than pessimistic.
‘The Life of Chuck’ Explores Apocalyptic Dread Differently
If there’s a subsection of the apocalyptic genre that explores the looming threat of doomsday, rather than the event itself, The Life of Chuck would get a gold star sticker, because it tackles the feeling of dread from a far different angle than movies would usually go. Rather than a place of chaos and anarchy, the movie tackles it in a far more bleak and melancholic way. The story takes place in a small suburban town (probably somewhere in Maine) and is seen through the eyes of Marty and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan). Both are bearing witness to the ravenous elements that are afflicting the world, such as catastrophes, natural disasters, and the steady loss of everything that people have become accustomed to. Things like the internet have begun to fall into entropy, and it’s happened rapidly within the last 14 months. Everything progressively gets worse and the cause of it seems to be beyond anyone’s control or understanding.
It’s incredibly bleak, with the people in town forgoing any attempt at looting or rioting and instead coming to grips that everything is falling apart, and they’re powerless to stop it. As it’s said by Marty’s neighbor Gus (played by the walking embodiment of warm hugs himself, Matthew Lillard), “We’re going through the five stages of grief. Don’t you get it? I mean, we just landed on the final stage: acceptance.” People stop going to work or school since they all see the futility in it, and that’s where the underlying, and almost monotonous, horror comes from — them knowing they’re all going to die and then having to wait for it to happen. As it’s said in the movie, it’s the waiting that’s the hardest part, and it leads to the chapter’s final moments, which is one of the most haunting things ever put in any Flanagan or King project.
‘The Life of Chuck’ Is the Most Unusual Stephen King Project
Tom Hiddleston’s Chuck and Annalise Basso’s Janice are caught up in a heavy arguementImage via USA Today
You wouldn’t think that a movie that spends so much time on the fall of civilized society would also make you feel warm inside, but The Life of Chuck is an anomaly. It helps that it’s narrated by Nick Offerman, who adds a degree of warmth and enchantment to the way he describes the world of the film. Not to mention that Flanagan’s flowery dialogue blends seamlessly here to create wholesome set pieces and character moments, like Miss Richard’s (Kate Siegel) deconstruction of Walt Whitman‘s “Song of Myself” or Albie (Mark Hamill) talking about the purity and artistry of math. In the hands of another filmmaker, these could feel so trite and forced, and the same could be said for the dance sequence between Chuck and Janice (Annalise Basso). However, everything feels true to the characters, and gives the movie a sense of positivity and wholesomeness.
That’s the word that really separates The Life of Chuck from other Stephen King stories: Wholesomeness. While a lot of his stories have an air of cynicism about the nature of people, this one isn’t afraid to be unabashed about the goodness they’re capable of too. Unlike other Stephen King works, there’s no malicious force or a character you despise. The threat of the story is the inevitability and unexpected nature of death, but that leads back to the endearing message of the film, which is to embrace that uncertainty and live life to the fullest with what time you have. That’s not what you’d expect from the author who’s known for putting Lovecraftian bugs and clown spider aliens in his stories, but that’s what helps it stand above the rest.
