Joseph Tralongo is a playwright and screenwriter who approaches storytelling with a deep respect for film’s ability to distill human behavior into meaningful moments. His personal work- i.e. his plays, screenplays, and films- leans into semantic tension, moral ambiguity, and the quiet unraveling of social dynamics- not to preach, but to parse. For him, writing is a slow excavation of truth through craft. With a background in theatre and independent film, he brings a structural precision and dramatic instinct to every film he reviews. Hollywood Insider’s mission to champion substance over spectacle aligns with Joseph’s belief that storytelling should investigate, not dictate.
Jun 19, 2025
Table of Contents
‘The Life of Chuck’ Contains Multitudes
‘The Life of Chuck’, based on Stephen King’s 2020 novella, director Mike Flanagan crafts a reverse-chronological odyssey through the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston). It is an elegiac meditation on memory, mortality, and moments of transcendence.
The story begins at the end- amidst Chuck’s final moments and a world seemingly unraveling- then winds backward through three interwoven acts that explore his adulthood, childhood, and the threads that connect them. Tom Hiddleston leads a powerhouse ensemble, including Mark Hamill as Chuck’s loving but complicated grandfather Albie, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Marty Anderson, a kind and reflective teacher, and Karen Gillan as a tirelessly busy nurse– perhaps the film’s quietest reflection of our current climate of collective burnout and emotional fatigue.
There doesn’t seem to be a set path for life after the MCU. Hiddleston found his way back to Shakespeare while Robert Downey Jr., hot off his Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor in ‘Oppenheimer’, made a bold return to theater with the Broadway play McNeal– which, despite the effort, landed with a critical thud. But Hiddleston’s choice to anchor something as introspective and lyrical as ‘The Life of Chuck’ suggests an actor still seeking, still stretching.
And then there’s Benjamin Pajak. Though his only major credit prior to this was his acclaimed stage debut in the Broadway revival of ‘The Music Man’ opposite Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster– for which he earned a Theatre World Award in 2022- Pajak delivers one of the most straightforwardly honest portrayals of childhood in recent memory. His performance calls to mind the open-hearted wonder of early Spielberg juveniles, like Henry Thomas in ‘E.T.’ or Cary Guffey in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. But there’s also an emotional maturity here that aligns more with the quiet ache of Jacob Tremblay in ‘Room’ or ‘Wonder’. He’s not just a child actor- he’s a presence. One of those rare talents who both fits perfectly on screen and seems capable of reaching far beyond it.
So, as the song goes: be prepared. Because wherever Pajak chooses to go- whether it’s the stage, the screen, the page, or the canvas- you’ll want to follow. If he continues down this road of genuine expression, we may be witnessing the start of something extraordinary.
After seeing ‘The Life of Chuck’, I’m genuinely surprised that it carries an R rating. There’s some language, yes, but very little else that even brushes against the kind of content you’d expect from such a label. There’s some language, sure, but hardly anything else that warrants the label. No sex. No drugs. There is rock and roll– but that’s easily the most innocent of the trio.
The film plays, particularly in its third act, like a Lemony Snicket story stripped of menace- a quiet, strange memory told with compassion, even uplifting. The scariest figure a young Chuck faces is his own grandfather, who comforts him immediately after his in the heat of the moment outburst after shoving him out of the harm’s way of a haunted cupola filled not with ghosts, but with visions of the future.
Honestly, I’m upset by the rating. Because this is exactly the kind of movie I want kids to see. A movie that doesn’t talk down to them. That lets them reckon with mortality- not in a terrifying, grim way, but in a poetic, meditative one. It’s a film about endings, sure. But also about doing what you love while you can.
Nowhere is that message clearer than in the film’s most luminous moment: a five-and-a-half minute street dance sequence that feels like the film’s very heartbeat. The scene, filmed over four days in Mobile, Alabama, was choreographed by Emmy-winner Mandy Moore- known for her work on ‘La La Land’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras’ tour. It captures Chuck dancing joyfully in the street with a beautiful stranger, the two feeding off the rhythm of a powerhouse drummer on the corner- each movement echoing the pulse of a world that’s ending, and yet somehow, still alive.
It’s a scene that nearly didn’t happen. Tom Hiddleston learned the steps remotely from London before arriving on set, where he burned through his shoes from the sheer number of takes. The number itself blends jazz, swing, cha-cha, polka, and even the moonwalk, mimicking the eclectic dance lessons Chuck once shared with his grandmother.
Mike Flanagan has called the scene the “crown jewel” of the film- emotionally, thematically, spiritually. “If that didn’t work,” he said, “the movie would not work.” It does work. And then some. Mandy Moore called the choreography “multi-lingual,” a testament to the layers of rhythm, memory, and love embedded in every movement. This is, of course, a metaphor for the line “I contain multitudes” from the Walt Whitman poem Song of Myself that plays as a central element in Chuck’s development in the 1st act (though technically 3rd, as you’ll recall the film plays in reverse) which culminates into a parting minute where Jacob Tremblay– playing Chuck as a teenager- recites what is essentially a mantra of self-love, and a promise to himself to live.
That’s the message of the film: If you hear music, dance. If you have time, use it. You might not get to do what you love every day. Maybe you never made it your career. Maybe you never got famous for it. But when you get a chance, do it. Life ends. Faster than you think.
This is the kind of film that should be shown in schools. That parents should show their kids when they start asking big questions. Because it doesn’t lie. It lets you feel the beauty in the grief.
I think that’s why it starts at the end. Firstly, so that we can be given a happy, hopeful ending since it’s technically the beginning, but also so that throughout the latter two-thirds of the movie, the audience is rooting for Chuck…to dance, to laugh, to love, to live.
Mark Hamill reportedly assumed he was signing on for a horror film. And who could blame him? With Mike Flanagan directing and Stephen King providing the source material, it was certainly an educated guess. But ‘The Life of Chuck’ turned out to be something else entirely: a meditative, surprisingly tender look at mortality and memory, not monsters.
Without spoiling too much of the plot (because it’s best discovered slowly), the film unfolds in reverse. Or rather, it collapses backward. From Chuck’s death to his childhood. From an apocalyptic goodbye to a quiet mantra. And along the way, the film invites a subtle, lingering question: Is Chuck a real person in this world? Or is the world a dream within Chuck?
That central quandary that the audience must decide for themselves, is Chuck these people’s dream, or is he in theirs? It gives the film an ethereal, almost liminal tone. You don’t watch it so much as you drift through it. It’s less about plot than presence. Less about action than atmosphere. You’re watching the shape of a man’s life, like light from a dying star. Still reaching us, even after he’s gone.
‘The Life of Chuck’ is not a horror film. But it is a Stephen King story. Which means it’s about death. About the finite. About the cracks in time where grief and joy collide. And it’s not a children’s movie, exactly. But it’s a film children could grow into. One they could revisit across their lives.
It’s not a movie that offers simple answers. It doesn’t tell you what to feel. It just shows you a life. And then asks- what will you do with yours?
So yes, I’m still mad about the R rating. Because films like this don’t come around often. Films that say, without irony or condescension, that self-love matters. That beauty matters. That dancing in the face of death is not foolishness- it’s faith.
Watch this film. Let it haunt you. Not with the demons you know from Stephen King’s typical work, but with joy. Because as Chuck himself learns: the ghosts are already here. Inside of him. The ghosts of everyone and everything he’s ever encountered- the multitudes that, according to the central Walt Whitman poem, are contained within Chuck. In all of us.
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Joseph Tralongo is a playwright and screenwriter who approaches storytelling with a deep respect for film’s ability to distill human behavior into meaningful moments. His personal work- i.e. his plays, screenplays, and films- leans into semantic tension, moral ambiguity, and the quiet unraveling of social dynamics- not to preach, but to parse. For him, writing is a slow excavation of truth through craft. With a background in theatre and independent film, he brings a structural precision and dramatic instinct to every film he reviews. Hollywood Insider’s mission to champion substance over spectacle aligns with Joseph’s belief that storytelling should investigate, not dictate.
Joseph Tralongo is a playwright and screenwriter who approaches storytelling with a deep respect for film’s ability to distill human behavior into meaningful moments. His personal work- i.e. his plays, screenplays, and films- leans into semantic tension, moral ambiguity, and the quiet unraveling of social dynamics- not to preach, but to parse. For him, writing is a slow excavation of truth through craft. With a background in theatre and independent film, he brings a structural precision and dramatic instinct to every film he reviews. Hollywood Insider’s mission to champion substance over spectacle aligns with Joseph’s belief that storytelling should investigate, not dictate.
Joseph Tralongo is a playwright and screenwriter who approaches storytelling with a deep respect for film’s ability to distill human behavior into meaningful moments. His personal work- i.e. his plays, screenplays, and films- leans into semantic tension, moral ambiguity, and the quiet unraveling of social dynamics- not to preach, but to parse. For him, writing is a slow excavation of truth through craft. With a background in theatre and independent film, he brings a structural precision and dramatic instinct to every film he reviews. Hollywood Insider’s mission to champion substance over spectacle aligns with Joseph’s belief that storytelling should investigate, not dictate.
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