Unever Take on Unusual Stephen King Story

Midway through its runtime, Mike Flanagan’s “The Life of Chuck” introduces a mantra of sorts, via a line of dialogue pulled from Stephen King‘s eponymous story: “Would answers make a good thing better?” The implication therein is an emphatic “No,” which suits “The Haunting of Bly Manor” creator’s esoteric (and esoterically structured) drama on embracing life, death and cosmic mysteries. However, it also ends up proving this point in all the wrong ways, swerving in and out of a boorish literalism that robs the film of its most euphoric power.

Like King’s story — one of four novellas collected in the book “If It Bleeds” — “The Life of Chuck” is divided into three acts depicted in reverse, each narrated by Nick Offerman. It kicks off with “Act Three,” which tells of the world falling apart from the perspective of a small American town. The internet has been on the fritz for months, and is on the verge of blacking out along with TV and cell service. Meanwhile, climate change has ravaged nearly every country (California has all but drifted into the Pacific), and suicide rates have skyrocketed, which leaves local doctor Felicia (Karen Gillan) trying to keep her head above water. And yet, Flanagan pulls off the herculean task of peppering this premise of rampant death with bursts of macabre and surreal humor, as Felicia’s ex, the schoolteacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), tries to convince nihilistic parents to keep educating their kids.  

The most frequent topics of conversation in this town include the latest catastrophic news bites and people asking one another about the curious billboards they’ve seen, thanking a professionally dressed, bespectacled man named Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) for “39 great years.” Is he a doctor? A radio host? A local TV personality? No one seems to know, but this is just one of many questions plaguing the movie’s characters — and, by this point, the…