Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Life of Chuck.There are many hidden connections in the ending of The Life of Chuck. The movie, which was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, adapts the Stephen King novella of the same name, making it the filmmaker’s third adaptation of the prolific author’s work after Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. The cast of the movie includes Tom Hiddleston as accountant Chuck Krantz alongside a huge ensemble that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Mark Hamill, Antonio Raul Corbo, Nick Offerman, and Annalise Bᴀsso, as well as Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, and Cody Flanagan as younger versions of Chuck.
The cast of The Life of Chuck is so robust because the movie tells three stories that are seemingly almost entirely disconnected, going backwards in time. The first, Act 3, presents an apocalyptic scenario where the end of the universe is hailed by billboards and advertisements thanking Chuck Krantz for 39 great years. The second, Act 2, centers on Chuck himself being inspired by a busker’s drumming to start an impromptu dance with a stranger. The third, Act 3, explores Chuck’s childhood and his first encounters with death and dancing, beginning with being orphaned by a devastating car accident.
What Happens In The Life Of Chuck’s Ending?
Chuck’s Life & Death Come Full Circle
While Act 1 generally moves forward in time, the ending of The Life of Chuck still marks one of the earlier moments in the timeline of the Stephen King movie, because it ends with Chuck as a high school junior. After being warned away from the cupola in his grandparents’ house, which his grandfather Albie (Mark Hamill) says is full of ghosts of things yet to come, he finally seizes the opportunity to investigate the room after Albie dies of a heart attack. While there, he sees a vision of himself as an adult in a hospital bed, slowly dying.
[Chuck] makes a decision to forget entirely about what he just witnessed…
However, instead of despairing about his death at what appears to him to be a relatively young age, he learns a lesson from his grandfather warning him that the dreadful anticipation of a loved one’s death is the most difficult part of the experience. In that moment, he makes a decision to forget entirely about what he just witnessed and embrace the wonder of life, letting it end when his time comes and appreciating what comes in between that moment and his eventual death, particularly the moments where he gets to be wonderful, like the dance in Act 2.
Why Does The Life Of Chuck End At The Beginning?
The Movie Is About Life Rather Than Death
While it may seem unclear at first, there are several important reasons why the story of The Life of Chuck is told in reverse order. The first is that Act 3 presents a mystery that is compounded by the seemingly unrelated Act 2, before Act 1 ties up the majority of those loose ends and explains the majority of what has happened up to that point. Without this structure, the story would lack the mystery that is essential to its exploration of the unknown depths of life and death.
The other most important reason that Act 1 of the Stephen King story comes last is that it would be entirely wrong for the movie to end with Chuck’s death. Just like Chuck himself, the audience is presented with a vision of his death long before they come to understand its exact significance. However, as the тιтle declares, the movie is about Chuck’s life rather than the end of it, exploring the ways that the fateful decision he made in the cupola allowed him to embrace living, impact the people around him, and be impacted by them in return.
How Much Of Act 3 Of The Life Of Chuck Is Real?
Act 1 Reveals Where Act 3 Actually Takes Place
One of the most important things that is explained in Act 1 of The Life of Chuck is the apocalyptic event depicted in Act 3. This explanation is provided by the philosophy of Chuck’s teacher Miss Richards (Kate Siegel), which she shares with him after the last class before summer break. When explaining what Walt Whitman meant when he wrote that “I contain mulтιтudes,” she suggests that everything a person sees and imagines builds up a universe inside their own head. It is the destruction of that universe which is depicted in Act 3.
The slow crumbling of the universe depicted in Act 3 is the result of Chuck’s long, debilitating illness.
Therefore, nothing that takes place in Act 3 is technically “real,” except the scene of Chuck being visited by his wife (Q’orianka Kilcher) and son (Antonio Raul Corbo) on his deathbed. The universe that is being destroyed in the story is the universe that has been built in his head over his 39 years, which has been ᴀssembled piecemeal from places he has actually been to (like his grandparents’ home) and people he knew or saw (including a teacher from his elementary school and his grandfather’s estate planning attorney), along with elements that never existed in the first place.
What Is The Importance Of The Cupola In The Life Of Chuck?
It Has Deep Symbolic Resonance
In addition to adding a magical realist element that allows Chuck to have advance warning of his own death, the cupola has a huge metaphorical significance in the story. First, its position at the top of the house gives it a resemblance to a deity, existing above mortal life and containing terrible, unknowable secrets. The cupola being a locked room deep inside the house is also a potent visual metaphor for the way that Chuck must keep his knowledge of death locked away inside his mind, lest it prevent him from embracing the joy of living in the first place.
The Real Meaning Of The Life Of Chuck
There Are Many Themes In Both The Novella & The Movie
Because The Life of Chuck encompᴀsses the breadth of an entire life, there are many themes under the surface. One of the most prominent is the fundamental interconnectedness of humanity. The movie emphasizes the value of interacting with others and pᴀssing along their pᴀssions and joys. The biggest throughline that explores this theme is the fact that Chuck learned how to dance from his grandmother (Mia Sara) and continued to use that skill to better the lives of those around him, including his classmate Cat (Trinity Bliss) and the recently dumped stranger, Janice (Annalise Bᴀsso), from Act 2.
Chuck and Janice’s dance also generates a huge amount of income for the busker, Taylor (Taylor Gordon).
A theme that is directly connected to that element of The Life of Chuck is the importance of ordinary lives. In addition to depicting this via Chuck’s actions, the movie further underscores this with Albie’s monologue about how his job as an accountant might not be glamorous, but it can save his clients’ lives. Other themes explored in the Mike Flanagan movie include the acceptance of the inevitability of death, the power of embracing the moment, humanity’s ability to be resilient in even the most dire of circumstances, and many more.
