NFL
By: Rick
Not every Stephen King book has to be a dark and twisted horror. As a matter of fact, some of his best work is outside the genre and often those works become movie adaptations. From Under the Dome to The Body, to The Green Mile, and everything in between, King has been all over the map and continues to put consistently put out content that Hollywood loves to adapt. One of his latest works The Life Of Chuck, a novella pulled right from the pages of the 2020 book titled If It Bleeds, was turned into a motion picture in 2024.
From StephenKing.com:
The Life of Chuck is three separate stories linked to tell the biography of Charles Krantz in reverse, beginning with his death from a brain tumor at 39 and ending with his childhood in a supposedly haunted house.
What makes The Life of Chuck unique is it’s essentially a story where you know the ending. It becomes more about the journey. It’s not a movie with a villain or antagonist to overcome per se. The “antagonist” is death. It’s the end of every story and we all know it’s coming. Maybe that’s why the story is told in reverse, we all know how it’s going to end so why not get that pesky part out of the story out of the way sooner.
With a few recognizable names in Hollywood attached to the film, it’s a much smaller scale that your box office heavyweights. Even with Mike Flanagan on as director and stars such as Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Karen Gillian, and Matthew Lillard (to name a few) it resembles more of an independent film. That’s not a bad thing either. When you have big names all in the same place, the focus is often on expectations more than the story being told. Luckily familiar faces just add to the comfort of the movie and not take away from the show.
What makes The Life of Chuck worth the watch is its relatability. Death is something we all face and, more often than not, shapes the decisions we make in life. The same could be said of Chuck. We see his life in parts and those parts are best shown out of order. If this was a more straightforward/linear story it would’ve had to have been told with an entirely different tone. The way it plays out reminds the audience of a simple moral we shouldn’t forget. The Life of Chuck, currently on Hulu, has a run time of 1-hour 51mins but the pace and subtlety of the movie will make it seem much shorter. If you’re a Stephen King fan, this one should easily be added to your Watchlist.
