The Life of Chuck

Posted on June 15, 2025 at 12:24 pm

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Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Apocalyptic themes, sad off-screen deaths including parents and grandparents, references to suicide
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 13, 2025

When a movie begins with “Act Three,” it is an invitation to open our minds to something unusual. “The Life of Chuck” is based on a story by Stephen King, and it reflects his more mystical side. While it includes dark and tragic themes, it is a story of profound humanity, ultimately spirit-expanding.

It begins at the end in more ways than one. A teacher named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is meeting with parents who seem oddly disconnected from concerns about how their children are doing in school. The world seems to be collapsing. A major earthquake has knocked California into the ocean. The internet is shutting down. Couples who have been together are splitting up and those that have split up are getting back together. Marty’s ex, Felicia (Karen Gillan) is an exhausted nurse in a hospital where most of the arrivals are attempted suicides. And somehow, signs – billboards, skywriting, bench posters, even projected in the windows of suburban homes — are appearing everywhere thanking someone named Chuck.

In Act Two we meet Chuck as a young boy and see him grow up. His parents were killed in an automobile accident, and he lives with his grandparents (Mark Hamill as Albie and “Ferris Bueller’s” Mia Sara as Sarah) in an old house with a padlocked room in a cupola on the top floor that he is warned never to open. He is very good at math but what he loves is dancing, and a dance class leads him to what will be one of his life’s most profound and satisfying moments, in part because after moments of doubt and fear of being judged (he is in middle school, the judgiest part of life), he finds the courage to follow his heart and take a risk. Later, as an adult, and, as we are told by narrator Nick Offerman, nine months from his death due to a still-undiagnosed brain tumor, he will have another sublime moment of dance, when he passes by a busking drummer on a break from an accounting conference.

To say much more would be to say too much; this is a film that benefits from an audience without expectations or advance guidance. But for those who have seen it and would like to know what I think it means, I have some spoiler-filled comments at the end of this review. For now, I will just point out that twice in the film teachers share a selection from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself in their classrooms, the part that goes

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

When Chuck’s teacher (played by Kate Sigel) explains this passage to him, she places her hands gently over his ears and asks what is between them. It is the multitudes within each of us, every emotion, every memory, every wish, every fear, every sublime moment, every crushing disappointment, every tiny quotidian interaction we are not even aware that we noticed.

This movie is a labor of love from both King and writer/director Mike Flanagan, whose wife (Seigel) and son (as the youngest version of Chuck) appear as key characters. It has a transcendent, poetic humanity that should make us better appreciate our own lives and the people we value. And take the time, at least once in a while, to dance.

Parents should know that a child’s father and pregnant mother are killed (offscreen) in a car accident and there are apocalyptic events. A central character dies and there are references to other deaths, including a suicide. Characters use strong language and there are references to pornography.

Family discussion: What multitudes are in you? Who would you want to be with if things were scary? What do we learn from Marty’s conversations with Sam and Gus? Should Chuck have listened to his grandfather’s advice?

If you like this try: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” and “Stranger Than Fiction”

Stop now if you don’t want spoilers.

CLUES: What does it mean that we see Sam and Gus in different time periods but they do not seem older or younger, while Chuck is played by four different actors as he goes from young childhood to middle age? Why is the Whitman poem so important?

MY VIEW: Every character in the movie is a part of the “multitudes” that make up one person, Chuck Krantz. The thank you signs are a part of his shutting down as he dies. When we die, our stories, our memories, our relationships, the multitudes within us stop, at least in the form of being contained in one individual consciousness. What Chuck saw in the locked room represents the recognition we all have that our lives are temporary.

Stephen King’s “Misery” — Now on Broadway with Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf

Posted on November 15, 2015 at 3:26 pm

Stephen King’s novel about a deranged fan who captures her favorite author became the film Misery, with an Oscar-winning performance by Kathy Bates.

Now it has been adapted for live theater, with a Broadway production starring Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf.

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Carrie

Posted on October 17, 2013 at 5:50 pm

The remake of “Carrie” is not a bad movie; it’s just a completely unnecessary one. The 1976 original is a horror classic, directed by Brian de Palma and the first film based on a novel by Stephen King, just 26 years old when he sold the rights for $2500. Both of its stars were nominated for Oscars, almost unheard of for a genre film, and it is number 46 on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 thrillers.

The idea of updating the story of the bullied high school girl to the era of Facebook and YouTube had some intriguing possibilities, especially directed by Kimberly Peirce, whose extraordinary “Boys Don’t Cry” had an insightful authenticity in the portrayal of young people who felt like outsiders. But there is nothing especially timely, revealing, or surprising in this remake. The performances are not up to the level of the original and even the special effects do not seem much better than those in the version that came out when Gerald Ford was President.

Less than a moment into the film, we are already immersed in blood. We hear screams and we see a Bible. Margaret White (Julianne Moore) is in bed, the sheets all bloody, moaning and praying. She thinks she is dying and she thinks it is because she is being punished. But the pains she feels are contractions and she is shocked to find a baby emerging from her. At first, she wants to kill her new daughter with her sewing shears. But she loves the newborn too much to hurt her and, as we learn, she sees the baby as another chance for her to be pure, to be kept safe from the predations of sin and the devil.

We then see Margaret’s daughter, Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz of “Kick-Ass” and “Let Me In”), a shy, repressed, somewhat backward senior in high school and ignored or insulted by the other girls. She gets her period for the first time in the locker room after PE and becomes hysterical. Like her mother, she has no idea what is going on with her body and she thinks she is dying. The other girls are horrified that she is so ignorant and make fun of her, throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her. Chris, the ringleader (Portia Doubleday) gets it all on her cell phone camera and uploads it to YouTube.

Margaret seems to think that if she had been able to keep Carrie “pure” she never would have gone through puberty. She locks Carrie in a small closet under the stairs and tells her to stay in there and pray.

But puberty seems to have unlocked some special powers in Carrie, powers that seem tied to her emotions. As she sits in the principal’s office, his water cooler bubbles and then explodes. Carrie gets books on miracles and telekinesis from the library and begins to see what she can do and how much she can control. For the first time, she begins to sense some independence and to rebel against her mother.

Sue (Gabriella Wilde) feels guilty about her role in making fun of Carrie and asks her boyfriend, Tommy (Ansel Elgort, soon to be seen in both “Divergent” and ‘The Fault in Our Stars”) to invite Carrie to the prom. She says no at first, but then accepts, and his kindness and courtesy make her feel appreciated for the first time. Until….

And that’s the thing. Everyone knows what happens at the prom. It is one of the most famous images in cinematic history. This replay adds nothing new.

Moretz is a thoughtful and serious young actor, but she is better at playing a precociously sophisticated and capable character like Hit Girl or even the friend of the Wimpy Kid than she is at trying to show us the innocent and vulnerable Carrie. More at fault is the script, which fails to provide a consistent emotional truth for the character. Like the Hulk, her powers are rooted in fury. King, even in his 20’s, knew how satisfying that would be for everyone who has been picked on (that is everyone), and Moretz is at her best when enjoying the sense of righteous revenge. To make the movie work, though, that would need to be balanced by an underlying sense of the character that is never there. The same goes for Margaret. In 2013, the thoughts of a religious fanatic open up some possibilities worth exploring but Peirce is more interested in re-creating the original than updating it.

Parents should know that this film has extensive and graphic peril and violence with many characters brutally killed, disturbing and bloody images, sexual references and situations involving teenagers, a graphic childbirth scene, teen drinking, and strong language.

Family discussion: Why were the girls so mean to Carrie? How has bullying changed since the story was first written? How did Carrie feel about her powers and why?

If you like this, try: the original film and some of the other Stephen King adaptations like “The Shining” and “Sleepwalkers”

Movie Theater Popcorn: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Posted on April 3, 2011 at 9:00 am

The Food and Drug Administration released its proposed rules on disclosure of nutritional and calorie information for the food served in chain restaurants. But intense lobbying by the theater industry has led to a great big loophole — movie snacks are not covered, “even though a large popcorn and soda can contain as many calories as a typical person needs in a day.”

Movie theaters have to send all of their first few weeks’ ticket sale revenues to the studio. They get to keep a portion only later, after early crowds have already seen the films. They make their money on the jumbo snacks with the jumbo mark-ups. (Movie popcorn usually costs them less than the cardboard vats it is served in). And they know that giving consumers accurate information about the calorie and fat content of the snacks might scare customers into coming into the theater with a pocket full of baby carrots to munch on instead. The trade association argued that people want to take a break from their diets when they go to the movies, just like they want to take a break from their daily lives. That may be true, but it is no reason to keep them from the information they need to make that decision.

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