In recent months I’ve noticed a stream of articles describing a new phenomenon infecting much of the content being produced by streaming giants like Netflix. I use the word “infecting” because I can think of no better way to describe its pernicious influence on media. Named “second-screen shows,” these are programs which are specifically designed to be partially ignored in the background by audiences as they putter about on their phones. The results are overly expository dialogue where characters will painfully state and restate what they’re thinking about and doing and unnecessary superficial narration. This is diet entertainment, artistic “content” stripped of all nuance and subtlety. Perhaps it was with this trend in mind that I found Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck such a breezy breath of fresh air. Based on a novella by Stephen King, the film plays like an anti-second-screen show. It demands attention, not because of the complexity of its plot or dialogue, but because so much of the film lives and dies in the corners of what is not explained, what is not made tangible. Here is a film that takes bold narrative risks with its story, assuming that its audience can follow its emotional arcs and implications without everything being spelled out or explained. It demands attention, and those willing to give it will find one of the most rewarding films so far released in 2025.
The film is told in three chapters, charting the life and premature death of accountant Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) in reverse chronological order. Surprisingly, Chuck is barely a background character in this first part as the film follows the lives of several of Chuck’s neighbors and acquaintances as the world ends, and I mean that literally. Earthquakes knock California into the sea, wildfires consume the farms of the Midwest, famine ravages Asia. One day the internet goes out. Then televisions, then phone networks, then electricity. And amidst it all, middle school teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tries to reconnect with his ex-wife Felicia Gordon (Karen Gillan) as one-by-one the stars wink out of the night sky. But no matter where Marty goes, he keeps seeing signs, billboards, and advertisements that say “Charles Krantz: 30 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!” What do these signs mean, and who is Chuck, Marty wonders. He has a vague memory of someone he might once have known, but he still can’t quite place him. Does he have something to do with the end of the world? The first segment literally ends mid-sentence as we’re spirited away nine months previously to the second act where a narrator (Nick Offerman) explains that in less than a year Chuck will be dead of a brain tumor. But for now he’s alive and attending a banking conference. In between meetings he has an unexpected encounter with a drum busker named Taylor (Taylor Gordon) where he goes into an impromptu dance with a young woman suffering from a recent breakup. Why does this mild-mannered man break into dance? What moves him? Before we can know we’re transported to the last act where Chuck, now a child, lives with his grandparents and is warned away from their house’s cupola where there reportedly live ghosts.
There is more to this film’s narrative, and I’m skipping over many crucial things and characters from each act, but the point remains that The Life of Chuck is a wonderful jigsaw puzzle of people and incidents that all point towards common emotional revelations: the purpose of living, survival through grief, wonder at the infinitude of the self among an even more infinite cosmos. I’ve repeatedly seen the film compared to Frank Capra’s reality-warping Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and indeed both films seem concerned with the full measure of a man and the weight of the choices and circumstances that define their main characters’ lives. But whereas It’s a Wonderful Life leaves things all neat and tidy by the film’s end, The Story of Chuck leaves many of its riddles unanswered. Here is a film that rewards repeat viewings and active imagination to understand. That’s about as anti-second-screen as things get.
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