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S3:E6 The Life of Chuck (2024 Film)
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Welcome to our first adaptation of Stephen King Month! We’re kicking things off with The Life of Chuck, a story that’s equal parts haunting, beautiful, and unexpected. Hosted by Crystal, this episode dives into King’s unique structure—told in reverse—and explores what it really means to celebrate a life.
Hosted by Crystal with co-hosts Keri and Lindsey.
Links to Books & Adaptations Discussed in this Episode:
- If It Bleeds (The Life of Chuck) by Stephen King
- The Life of Chuck (2024 Film)
- The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020 Series)
- The Loser’s Club: A Stephen King Podcast – The Life of Chuck Movie Review
Listen on Libro.fm with Our Affiliate Links!
Question of the Episode:
- What is a seemingly small moment that stuck with you leaving an impact most people wouldn't expect?
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Thanks for listening to Based on a Book—see you in the next chapter!
Chapters:
(00:00) Introductions
(01:19) Ratings and Non-Spoiler Discussion
(05:04) Book vs Movie Breakdown (SPOILERS)
(43:26) Final Verdict
(46:08) Question of the Episode
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Carrie, and deserve to be wonderful. naively crashing through books And
00:00:16
Speaker
i'm your host crystal and i am wonderful i'm carrie and i deserve to be wonderful and i'm lindsay and i contain multitudes This week, we tag along with the kings of horror, author Stephen King, and writer-director Mike Flanagan for a chilling tale filled with death and mayhem guaranteed to make your skin crawl.
00:00:41
Speaker
Just kidding. This is actually a touching tale of a dying man and the small, joyful moments of his life that outshined this sadness. I'm going to cry already, you guys. Crystal, we just started. Crystal.
00:00:54
Speaker
I know. i know. That's right, guys. We are dancing our way into The Life of Chuck. First published in Stephen King's collection of short stories, If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck is a novella that tells the touching tale of Charles Krantz backwards over three acts.
00:01:13
Speaker
Act three is how the world is experiencing Chuck's death. Act two is a day in the life of adult Chuck. And act one is Chuck's childhood. I don't know about everyone else, but But I cried in each act.
00:01:26
Speaker
So what about you two? When did you start crying? And how do you rate this story, Carrie? Okay, okay. All right.
00:01:38
Speaker
I had a really interesting experience with the story. i gave it five great years.
00:01:51
Speaker
And I did not cry. Until one day after I finished this book. Okay. Okay.
00:02:01
Speaker
Because, ah so I finished it and I was like, okay, that was okay. And then I was like sitting there and it was like computing in my head of what just happened.
00:02:16
Speaker
And I couldn't come up with a rating because I was like, I don't know how I feel about this. Like, I was like, it wasn't formula that I'm used to.
00:02:29
Speaker
it wasn't doing what I'm used to. and my personal experience reading it was, ah I was just like, I don't know how I feel, but it's sitting with me. It's like sitting on my chest. And then all of a sudden, everything was like clicking for me in my head. yeah And then I was like crying about it.
00:02:54
Speaker
yeah And that was my personal experience with it. I wasn't crying while reading. I think I i got a little emotional, like not crying, but just like like it was in my feels for a few scenes.
00:03:07
Speaker
But then all of a sudden it just hit me. And I was like, oh, this is a five star read right here. Yeah. this And I have not experienced that before, which was kind of insane.
00:03:19
Speaker
ok Okay, okay. Lindsay, what's your rating and when did you start tearing up? My rating is four crescent-shaped scars.
00:03:32
Speaker
And I didn't start crying until I watched the movie. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I rate this story as six multitudes.
00:03:44
Speaker
I started crying in the book when... oh Right now? Right now. When in Act 3, the very first one, when Marty meets the man on his walk to Felicia's subdivision and they start talking about math and the universe.
00:04:04
Speaker
But the movie had me in Act 3, the first one, when Matthew Lillard's giving his monologue killed me. i I watched his film.
00:04:15
Speaker
face He's such a great actor that his face kind of starting to tear up and starting to, his emotions are starting to bubble out. Like that got me. It just sent me.
00:04:28
Speaker
I will never forget this story. i'm Death and grief is something that i think about a lot. I've had a lot of it in my life recently. There's more probably coming soon.
00:04:42
Speaker
And this was just so beautiful.
00:04:48
Speaker
Oh, I told you guys I wouldn't make it this time. I know. So this was a good one for me and I'm very excited to talk about it with you. Especially this movie that I know had us all pretty messed up.
00:05:01
Speaker
So without further ado, are you ladies ready to get into our spoilers? Yeah, let's get into our spoilers. Okay. This is your spoiler warning listeners. We are going to talk about all the things we love, we hate, or we hate to love about the book and the movie.
00:05:21
Speaker
And that includes the major plot points and our interpretations of them. If you have not read this story or seen the movie, honestly, stop right here and go do that. I'm begging you.
00:05:32
Speaker
Don't listen to the rest of this episode until you do. As always, it is your choice. but don't make the wrong one. ah short list of this week's trigger warnings include lots of talk about death, grief, loss, and the end of the world.
00:05:47
Speaker
If these topics give you pause, please check out Storygraph for a more comprehensive list moving forward. With that said, here we are. Stephen King, in the introduction to the audiobook, says he was thinking of an African proverb that says,
00:06:05
Speaker
You guys, I'm not going to make it. You got this, Crystal. You got ah He was thinking of an African proverb that says, when an old man dies, a library burns down, which led him to think of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and the line, I am large, I contain multitudes.
00:06:25
Speaker
This musing led to the first draft of the life of Chuck, but it wasn't until he saw a busker in Boston that inspiration struck and we get the full story King says is about the joy of life in the shadow of death.
00:06:39
Speaker
As with an awful lot of Stephen King adaptations, this one is incredibly similar to the book with act three, the very first act. It's titled Thanks, Chuck, and it opens with the POV of a middle school teacher, mr Anderson.
00:06:55
Speaker
Played by Chuletel, AG04, he's trying to make it through parent-teacher conferences and what is seemingly the end of the world. Of course, all of the parents want to talk about the fact that the internet's gone.
00:07:11
Speaker
you know, here he is trying to talk about the kids and they're trying to talk about what happened to California falling off the face of the earth. I think the way this is done in the story is because we're, it's almost like Mr. Anderson is the narrator at this point.
00:07:30
Speaker
And we hear a lot of his thoughts about how like, yes, this all kind of sucks, but like, we have to keep moving. We have to kind of keep going. just another It's just another, just another,
00:07:43
Speaker
thing happening in the world. It's just another day for good or for bad, for better or for worse. And we find out that he has an ex-wife and she is a nurse at the local hospital.
00:07:57
Speaker
They are now calling themselves the nursing staff and the doctors are calling themselves the suicide squad because again, end of the world. There's tons of natural disasters. The internet is going in and out.
00:08:09
Speaker
and people are kind of panicked. What happens when people panic, they make um quick decisions that aren't necessarily the happiest for everyone to think about.
00:08:21
Speaker
But ah Felicia, this nurse, his ex-wife, um they start talking again. They start calling each other just to have someone to talk to. And they talk about in the book how, you know, lots of people find themselves reaching out to past relationships for that comfort, something that they find comfort and in, in these scary times.
00:08:46
Speaker
Felicia kind of says to him that like, this is you know, what, what are we even trying for? Like, is this the end in the movie?
00:08:59
Speaker
Mr. Anderson goes on this incredible monologue of Carl Sagan's the universe, the time of the the entirety of the universe since the Big Bang for the calendar year, which is something that I've heard a thousand times before because I'm a nerd.
00:09:19
Speaker
And the way he's saying it and comforting Felicia, i started tear up in the movie. don't know about you guys, but that was ah moment for me. But then she says, i don't remember exactly her words, but it was something along the lines of like, if this is all we have to talk about.
00:09:39
Speaker
we're this miserable at the end, then at least we're miserable together. And that kind of sticks with him. And then he goes and he he goes to find her.
00:09:53
Speaker
But it's on his way to work the next day that, or on his way home from work after the parent-teacher conferences that we first notice a billboard. And the billboard says, thanks for a great 39 years.
00:10:08
Speaker
Charles Krantz. Thanks, Chuck. Something I think is, like, super interesting about the book and the movie is that you have to, for this first part, which is quote, act three, you have to pay attention to all the details.
00:10:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And... This is a novella. like This is a short story in If It Bleeds for Stephen King.
00:10:43
Speaker
The movie is kind of long, almost two hours. It is a slow-moving movie. Very slow.
00:10:54
Speaker
But it's almost like every scene, every piece of dialogue is extremely significant. And not just every piece of dialogue. the The scenes themselves.
00:11:06
Speaker
You see... Every person you're meeting. Every poster, every sign, every, you know, the things that people say. Because these end up being themes throughout the whole movie.
00:11:17
Speaker
And a huge clue as to what's actually happening in Act 3. Yeah. Yeah, I honestly, at this point, I did kind of reflect on what it better to go into this movie blind?
00:11:35
Speaker
Or is it better to have read the book than watch the movie? I was trying to think, like, how would I react? Because honestly, starting the movie, I'm crying.
00:11:52
Speaker
I'm crying as I'm starting the movie because that whole act three, the emotional impact of every little piece. Especially when you already know what's happening. Exactly. like The emotional impact is so much better.
00:12:05
Speaker
But then I was like, what if I didn't know anything that was happening here? Right. How would this affect me? And when things started clicking later, would that affect me as hard as it is right now?
00:12:17
Speaker
Right. No. I am curious what people would think are thinking. That haven't read the book. maybe i've I've considered this a couple of times that maybe one of us should watch the movie first and then read the book just so we get that perspective.
00:12:31
Speaker
But I don't ever want to be the one who does that. Yeah. Right. I do not volunteer for that role. Yeah. But no, I agree because there's a ton going on. And as far as movies go, this is so out of the box, I think, for Mike Flanagan. This is, i mean, he did Bly Manor, right? And I really loved Bly Manor.
00:12:57
Speaker
yeah But specifically, one of my favorite parts of Bly Manor is the last episode where we get a little bit more of love story, of romance, of that character building kind of tying together and so i'm not surprised that he was able to pull off this movie yeah a lot of people said that that this movie was impossible to make or this book was impossible to make into a movie and mike flanagan he's known to take this type of challenge and this type of
00:13:35
Speaker
story on. So I think that's interesting. I was watching an interview with him and they asked him like, why this story? And he basically said that he wanted to do this for his children, that he wanted to leave this legacy that like, yes, life is going to throw horrible things at you, but there is beauty there too, if you choose to look for it.
00:13:59
Speaker
And he wanted to show his kids that he could look for the beauty, that he could show them the beauty, which I cried listening to the interview. One of his kids is in the movie.
00:14:10
Speaker
i Yeah. Isn't that cool? He plays the the youngest of the Chucks, I think. I want to say seven-year-old Chuck. Yeah. And let's like, seriously, well, let's get through act Three.
00:14:23
Speaker
So basically he he you know, Mr. Anderson wanders, decides to walk to Felicia's house because at this point there's sinkholes everywhere. You know, the power is going in and out. There's no internet. There's no phone. And he decides he's going to walk to Felicia's house.
00:14:40
Speaker
He meets a man along the way. They walk together and share some beautiful stories about math and the universe, which... but you know, my nerd heart just melted because if there's anything in the world that gives, like, I'm not a super faithful person. I'm not like huge into God and most religions, but the beauty of math and the beauty of numbers is something that I have a lot of faith in. And so this hit me really hard.
00:15:07
Speaker
thought it was just beautiful. And then he gets to Felicia's house or to her subdivision as the sun's setting and it's getting dark. And he sees this girl skating roller skating down the road and the power goes out and he tells her you need to to get going back to your house and all the street lights have gone out and suddenly thanks chuck images start popping up in all the windows of every house up and down the street which is honestly in my opinion at this point so in the book in my like when i'm reading this i i don't know about you guys but i'm like trying to figure out what the hell is going on right
00:15:45
Speaker
it wasn't clicking for me what's actually happening. And, you know, we were actually getting some point of views of somebody Dying in a hospital bed.
00:16:00
Speaker
In the book. We were getting some point of views. In the movie, we actually got right before that scene where um Felicia was- Felicia's still in the hospital. She was still in the hospital.
00:16:13
Speaker
This, have I have chills right now just thinking about this scene where everyone's not at the hospital anymore. because It's empty, empty. well yeah Not even patients. Yeah, because like everything's shutting down. Everything's basically going to crap.
00:16:26
Speaker
And, you know, they're getting, you know, getting rid of patients and all that stuff. Also, this cast, there's a bunch of cast members from so Haunting of Bly Manor and Hill House, which is ah so cool to me.
00:16:40
Speaker
But, you know, everyone's left the hospital and they hear beeping. I literally have chills right now. They hear beeping and they go into One of the rooms and they see one of the machines almost looks like it's hooked up to a person, but nobody's there.
00:16:56
Speaker
And then all the machines in the hospital are doing the same thing. The little heartbeat monitor. And then it clicks of like, what the heck is going on? Like something, something weird is going on here. And in the book, we keep flashing to this person that's in a hospital bed and he is dying in like about to die.
00:17:20
Speaker
And as These disasters are happening and things are shutting down. Like, as his body is shutting down, things are shutting down in the real world.
00:17:33
Speaker
mom At this point, my perspective as I'm reading this, I'm thinking it's either... like this is his mind and i also was thinking like he is some like someone with some type of power that has connection to the world and it has the ability to do these things so i was like those were like my two options here and whenever i was reading this i really want to where is this gonna go yeah i really want to come back to that when we get to act one remind me you said that yeah i really want to come back to that
00:18:09
Speaker
So basically he ends up over at Felicia's house. there's They're being very calm, but they're scared. And they sit in the backyard to go look up at the stars. And the stars start going out. ah One by one, the stars start to disappear.
00:18:25
Speaker
And as Felicia turns to him and says, I'm scared. He says, me too. I love you. And then black. It's just gone. It's all gone. And we go to act two.
00:18:39
Speaker
which is the one that most everyone has seen previews of. This is the one that they marketed the film with. This is the one that you see the most. This is where Tom Hiddleston comes in and is dancing with the busker.
00:18:56
Speaker
boils down to nine months before Chuck's death. Also, just Nick Offerman is the narrator of this movie. Mm-hmm. We don't see him in any of the interviews of the cast, which I think is really sad because he's amazing. And his voice was so perfect for the narration.
00:19:19
Speaker
But Nick, I'm really happy that it was narrated yeah general. Yes. Because I think that it helped. Like I said before, is this is a slow moving movie. And I think for...
00:19:34
Speaker
Some of the audience, I don't think it's going to do particularly well. But I think having this narrator like this helps it move along and helps push it along.
00:19:47
Speaker
Absolutely. my opinion. I also feel like with a lot of adaptations, they try to remove the narrator and they try to separate it from it being a story. Right.
00:19:58
Speaker
So I was really surprised, but actually pretty happy that they had a narrator and Absolutely. Yeah, I think it enhanced the film a lot.
00:20:09
Speaker
Absolutely. we but Because Nick Offerman is narrating, we hear him say that this is nine months um before Chuck dies. This is just before Chuck finds out that he has a brain tumor.
00:20:23
Speaker
We find out that he's having some headaches, but that's really about it. He's had a couple of symptoms, but nothing really to make him think that anything is seriously wrong. And he is out of town on a business trip at a banking convention.
00:20:39
Speaker
And although he could sit and hang out with the other accountants and bankers at this convention, he decides he's going to take a walk down the promenade. And he sees ah busker.
00:20:53
Speaker
And we get to hear through the narration, Nick Offerman, which I think is beautiful, but in the book, we kind of get the POV directly from the busker whose name is Taylor.
00:21:06
Speaker
And we we see like the thought of setting up the drums, why we want to play the drums, the how You know, yeah, Taylor got accepted to Juilliard, but Juilliard wanted you to be formulaic and drill and mathematical and precise. But she wanted to feel the rhythm. She wanted to experience playing.
00:21:30
Speaker
And that's why she loves to busk. And so she's out busking. And here comes Mr. Businessman. And he stops in front of her dance.
00:21:43
Speaker
Well, of course, we also get another woman, Janice, who just was unceremoniously dumped via text. So she's decided she's going to just go for a walk, maybe go treat herself to a bottle of wine. She's just done with everyone for the day.
00:22:03
Speaker
And she's walking and she sees the busker and this man dancing. And she can't help but kind of start to tap her foot. She can't help but stop and enjoy this too. And she's feeling the music too. And the next thing you know, she's dancing with Chuck.
00:22:20
Speaker
This is told so well in the book, but shown so well in the movie that even my son stopped playing with his Legos to sit on the couch.
00:22:36
Speaker
And he was tapping on the couch. He was tapping on his legs. And then when it was all done and all over, he goes, that was really good, wasn't it, Mom? Busted out crying.
00:22:47
Speaker
Dead. oh It was beautiful. you know? Yeah. But it was such Something that Stephen King is like, he's doing so well here. Mm-hmm.
00:22:59
Speaker
Is that... He's talking about the life's, like, life's ups and downs without saying I'm talking about life's ups and downs.
00:23:12
Speaker
Right. I'm capturing this, like, act two is so obviously, this is bright and sunny, like, even in the environment in the movie. It is so bright and sunny. All the colors are just like in your face.
00:23:27
Speaker
It is blue. yeah Yellows. Like she I think she was wearing, i think she was wearing red. i can't remember. yeah A red dress. like It's very like beautiful, bright, happy. and then she,
00:23:41
Speaker
we're we when When we were in Act 3, very much different because you know our body was shutting down. right The environment is completely different. The tone and also just the color scheme of everything is completely different in the movie.
00:23:59
Speaker
So, like, my plan again brought that to life. Yep, absolutely. What Stephen King was writing. It was so well done.
00:24:13
Speaker
Annalise Basso, who plays Janice, the young girl that just got broken up with, was also in Mike Flanagan's movie Oculus. That's where she met him. So we see, again, a lot of this. He's bringing a lot of the same cast, that a lot of the people he's comfortable with. And I think he talks about how Stephen King really wanted to protect the story.
00:24:32
Speaker
because it was it meant a lot to Stephen King. And Mike talks about, too, how he wanted to protect this movie, because it was a miracle that it got made in the first place, because there were a whole bunch of strikes happening at the time. it was right after COVID, or right after the peak of COVID, but still lots of concerns. So you know the film industry really changed a lot in that time, and there were a lot of obstacles to overcome. But this movie somehow did get the go ahead to proceed and he wanted to make sure it was done perfectly. And I think that's why we see a lot of repeat cast in this.
00:25:09
Speaker
I think he very much chose to go with people he knew he could count on. He knew he had worked with before he knew could pull off exactly the type of character he was going for when he wrote the screenplay.
00:25:21
Speaker
And you see that Karen Gillan was also in Oculus. Yep. And she plays Felicia. Yep. So we see a lot of repeat, even like he's worked with Mark Hamill, but well he's worked with the vast majority of, of course, his wife is also in the movie.
00:25:36
Speaker
Which I did not know was his wife. I like just found that out right before we started recording. I wouldn't have known had I not watched a whole bunch of interviews on this in the last couple of days. And I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.
00:25:49
Speaker
like Yeah. That was good one. I just found that out. And I was like, wait what? What? It's crazy. so it was it was very well very well cast, if you ask me. I don't think there's anybody that felt out of place.
00:26:02
Speaker
All of these actors, it was easy for me to forget who I was watching because I was so engrossed in the story. And that, to me, is like that's when I know it's well cast. When I stopped seeing, you know, the name the star name. I stopped seeing Tom Hiddleston. I started seeing Chuck, you know. Mm-hmm.
00:26:22
Speaker
I stopped seeing Mark Hamill. I started seeing Zadie. And that I think is really the mark of some great casting. So we see this beautiful dance. They have this amazing time.
00:26:34
Speaker
But at the end of the dance, after everybody's clapped and even the crowd kind of really felt it, they they go off with Taylor, but the busker, and they kind of talk a little bit. And she splits the tip saying, I wouldn't have made this much without you.
00:26:50
Speaker
And she says, why did you stop and dance? And he couldn't really answer. and this is when Nick Offerman chimes in, and we do hear it in the book as well, that although Chuck will face excruciating pain, even forgetting his wife's name and losing his ability to speak, he'll remember this moment and the feeling that God made the world for moments like that.
00:27:15
Speaker
And that ball like a baby, way I'm telling you, And then all through 1, I also cried. And something in the movie that I think... I like that they did this in the movie, you know, for our eyes to see versus what we're reading. Yes. Is that at this point, we see a couple people that we saw from 1.
00:27:45
Speaker
Act three, the first part that we just saw. Right. Like on the, down the promenade, we see the girl skating down the promenade that was skating down the street in the subdivision. yeah a hand and I love, this is so well done. All the little tiebacks to that first act three in the beginning.
00:28:02
Speaker
We see those people showing up through acts two and act one. And I, It just is so perfect in my mind that you start seeing these connections and they're not in your face. They're not obvious. The, you know, the camera doesn't zoom in on them or anything crazy. It's just perfect amount of wait, is that it is. And that clicking in your head.
00:28:32
Speaker
um So now we move to act one where. we It's called Contains Multitudes. I Contain Multitudes. We start with Chuck as a small, small child when his parents die in a car crash.
00:28:49
Speaker
And even though his parents die in a car crash and his mother was pregnant at the time with what they know to be a girl who already had a name picked out. He talks about like we this is more from Chuck's point of view. This is more.
00:29:05
Speaker
from little Chuck. And we start to see the pattern of great, great sadness in his life with the juxtaposition of great joy and and great beauty.
00:29:18
Speaker
And he talks about how his little sister already had a name, Alyssa. And he said, and it sounded like he told his mother, it sounded like rain and she smiled when he said it, you know, so he remembers his mom's smile.
00:29:33
Speaker
He was raised by his grandparents who were his father's parents. And he talks about how it was a house full of sadness and grief for over a year.
00:29:48
Speaker
But then one day things started to get better and they went to Disney world. i think it was Disney world. And they actually enjoyed themselves. They had a nice trip. And then his grandmother started dancing in the kitchen And this is where Chuck starts to fall in love with dancing because it was fun to do with his grandma.
00:30:06
Speaker
And that little boy in the movie was breaking my heart. Absolutely. and Like literally breaking my heart. Like he was just the sweetest little boy. i like literally want to cry just thinking about it. I cannot, cannot just the children in this movie, like the the young boys who were cast as young Chucks.
00:30:32
Speaker
did such a great job. It was just beautiful to watch. Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, and of course, Pajak, I hope, and Cody Flanagan, all three, first of all, somehow they all managed To look like they could be the same person.
00:30:53
Speaker
i know. was thinking that too. I was like wow is this AI. Did they age him up. Is this some serious graphics. Like I don't know what's happening. But it's amazing.
00:31:04
Speaker
They did an excellent job casting. These three kids. And they did an excellent job. Playing Chuck. It was beautiful. But we watched them.
00:31:17
Speaker
learning to dance with grandma. We watched them, ah you know, watching grandma getting used to, or, you know, getting the town gossip from, you know, the lady down the street. And, you know,
00:31:29
Speaker
We get a reappearance from Rita Hayworth. We do. We do. And this is another time where we watch grandmas playing movies on the television of dances.
00:31:40
Speaker
And that's a callback to one of the movies that was playing before the televisions went out. The Netflix went out in act three at the beginning. And yeah, at this point, like even little moments like dialogue, people that you're seeing. hmm.
00:31:58
Speaker
you're getting more and more in this last part, technically act one of people that we saw in act three. Yep.
00:32:10
Speaker
And honestly, like I, at this point, and this is like what I was reflecting on later of how this is done. i want to cry thinking about this.
00:32:22
Speaker
I'm telling you the fact that it started with I want to cry. it's okay. going to cry right now. You're allowed. ah Starting with the ending that's like horrible, like the ending that we don't want to hear. That's obviously not a happily ever after. you know We're starting with this ending, but we're ending with something that's not so bad. We're ending the book with the beginning.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah. And we're ending the book with like uplifting moments on how, you know, we're going to survive this and we're going to get through this instead of ending in you know, when everything kind of goes to shit.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yep. And I kind of love that. Yep. Going backwards this way. So we can actually not necessarily end on a good note, but end on a note.
00:33:27
Speaker
Of being like, this is where it started and I'm not going to let this, you know. i'm kind of jumping ahead, but this is like where I kind of had like a moment of thinking that. Whereas i like, what the purpose of going backwards this way. This is also though, where we find out that Zadie played by Mark Hamill.
00:33:51
Speaker
Thinks that the cupola is haunted And we see that in the guys in the beginning, his house where he just kind of looks at it and then walks away.
00:34:06
Speaker
ah but the cupola is haunted and Zadie sees deaths before they happen in the cupola. And that's why he doesn't want Mark to go or doesn't want Chuck to go up there.
00:34:21
Speaker
of course, Chuck attempts to go up there. A time or two to attempts to find out what's happening and pieces together that Zadie is genuinely seeing things happen before they happen.
00:34:36
Speaker
he He doesn't doubt this. He doesn't try to brush it off. He believes that that is true. And then Chuck's grandmother dies. Almost exactly the way Zadie mentioned it would happen.
00:34:51
Speaker
His bubby. His bubby. and I cried, yeah still crying. Surprise, surprise.
00:35:03
Speaker
You know, zadie and Chuck now are alone and there's again, grief and sadness in the house. But this is when Chuck decides to join the afterschool dance club.
00:35:17
Speaker
And he starts to dance with his friends and, you know, loves, He knows a lot of the dances that they're already doing because his Bubby taught him, his grandmother taught him, and he is finding that joy again.
00:35:35
Speaker
And we see him being really excited because this is kind of how he keeps her memory alive and and keeps that joy going. And so he starts dancing with this club and he gets, you know, he gets paired off with a lot of the girls that aren't as great at dancing because the teacher, the instructor wants him to help them to get better, but he really wants to dance with the one girl in the class who's super good, Kat, who he has a crush on, but she's already with somebody else. And so he's like, whatever, I just want to dance.
00:36:09
Speaker
And so they end up not going to the school dance together, but meeting at the school dance specifically so they can show off their moves and And they wait for the right moment, they write for the right song, and they finally do it, and the whole school cheers them on. And it is this moment in Chuck's childhood that is another one of those, those you know, perfect moments that he cherishes.
00:36:39
Speaker
Afterwards, he's hot, he's sweaty, he's excited, but he steps outside to get some cool night air for a minute and is just enjoying this high of this perfect moment and ends up leaning back against a fence and whacking his hand into it and cutting his hand and getting a crescent-shaped scar on his hand, which doesn't seem like a big deal
00:37:06
Speaker
now in that moment. But not long after, um when Chuck is 17, Zadie dies. And leaves Chuck everything.
00:37:19
Speaker
Was very prepared for his death. Had everything already taken care of and lined up.
00:37:29
Speaker
And Chuck... Of course, inherits the house and everything. And he's alone for a few days before his mom's parents can come stay with him until he finishes high school and goes off to college.
00:37:42
Speaker
And he goes upstairs to the cupola and sees man dying in a hospital bed and realizes based on the scar on his hand that it's him.
00:37:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And this is where we get, ah not crying, this is where we get him saying, i am wonderful. I deserve to be wonderful. i contain multitudes.
00:38:12
Speaker
And he decides in that moment that he's going to live.
00:38:18
Speaker
Stephen King says that it was really important to him that Chuck see and be confronted by his own death because we all die.
00:38:30
Speaker
We all die. Everyone dies. And he wanted it to be kind of in Chuck's face so that we once again see the choice to live. We once again see that choice to embrace joy amongst all this sadness. His parents dying, his grandparents dying.
00:38:51
Speaker
All of this happening around him and he still chooses to dance in front of the busker. He still ends up getting married and having a child. And he ends up dying at 39 years old.
00:39:03
Speaker
And with the world in his head dies with him. Yeah. And that's like because whenever the teacher talks to him before, whenever she's like, you contain multitudes, like you contain like the people that you meet in your head and the people that you create in your head.
00:39:21
Speaker
Every manhole cover. Yeah. Every street sign. Everything. There's a whole universe in your head. Yeah. And that's essentially what act three is, is that every, that is his head. That is the beginning of his universe.
00:39:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's his universe in his head. Everything that's shutting down when they're like saying that, you know, California, California, just like Part of California just fell off.
00:39:50
Speaker
Or like this something else happened. Or there's no more internet. it's And then like they see start seeing stars blinking out. And they're saying... All these billboards are everywhere. Saying, thanks Chuck.
00:40:03
Speaker
For 39 years or whatever. It's because like his body is shutting down. and they're saying, thanks Chuck. For 39 years. Because... like He had 39 years and he's about to die. Like whenever all that was clicking for me, I literally had like a moment.
00:40:20
Speaker
I love how at the end here in act one, the teacher has, has you know it was the last day of school and she was trying to read them Whitman. and he was the only one who even kind of noticed and thought about it. And so she stops, you know, he says, what does that mean? And she's explaining it to him.
00:40:38
Speaker
And this is the moment when we start seeing, like, from this moment forward, we start seeing the characters that were in the beginning. We see Mr. Anderson as a teacher in the school, even though obviously Chuck's a child in this moment. And that can't be the one from that's in Chuck's mind that that man is a teacher. So that man is a teacher in Chuck's universe.
00:41:03
Speaker
You know, we start seeing even Felicia, the the nurse, who You know, we start seeing the other characters slowly coming in and it clicks in your head that like, oh, these aren't the characters from Act 3. These are the characters in Chuck's universe.
00:41:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I know. and I was... It's so well shown. Yeah. It's so well shown in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. And this is where I'm going to go back to your i thought maybe he had superpowers and was creating this.
00:41:41
Speaker
yeah I think that's the point of the story is that he did have superpowers and he did create this. And so can you. And so does Lindsay. And so do I. And everyone around us has this universe.
00:41:53
Speaker
that we create, that we nurture and control and enjoy in our minds and how we perceive it. And when we go, it's gone. So it's precious while we have it.
00:42:05
Speaker
And i I thought that was really beautiful. I think about that a lot. I um i have, again, a lot of losses life.
00:42:18
Speaker
fairly recently and more coming soon. And it is something that I consider a lot, what happens when someone goes. So that African proverb of when an old man dies, the world loses a library to me is is really fitting because Chuck's universe is gone from existence now. And although it might've only existed in his mind, it was still in existence and the world lost that.
00:42:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And that's everyone. That's everyone. You know, when we lose one person, we lose an entire universe. Yeah. When I was listening to the Losers Club podcast that was covering this book, they were talking about how basically they believe that Stephen King wrote this also for himself. Mm-hmm.
00:43:16
Speaker
Like as in like him feeling that when he dies, it's like his universe, his world, his characters going with him. Which is like honestly an entire another layer to this, which is very sad.
00:43:32
Speaker
I think that's a huge part of why he wrote this and why it seems to really be very special to him. This is one of the first the Toronto International Film Festival is where this film um had its world debut and this and Stephen King went and it's the first time he went to one of his film premieres since the Green Mile it's this one is special to him um and I can see why yeah for sure so what's the verdict though do we think movie or book Carrie takes a drink she's like I'm not no not me Lindsay what do you think
00:44:12
Speaker
I'm going to say this movie for me was definitely five stars. I like the the book. I really do like the book, but this movie was it for me. I'm going movie.
00:44:25
Speaker
Carrie. I want to say both, but I like the book a little more. i I mean, I have to admit that with the movie, I do think some scenes were a little long.
00:44:41
Speaker
where like there was a point where some of the dialogue or even with like the dancing part where I was like okay it's still going like I was like surprised that it was still going but that's my only problem with it otherwise it I thought it was great like it's just slightly I liked it just like a tiny bit less than the book i of course, love audiobooks.
00:45:13
Speaker
The audiobook on this one, if you take out the introduction and you take out the, you know, chapter for the next book, it's a about two hours.
00:45:24
Speaker
The movie is also about two hours. If you're only going to do one, if you're only going to do one, I'm going to say to watch the movie. I am also then going to tell you that there's no reason you can't also read the book.
00:45:40
Speaker
Like, I don't understand why you are choosing. Like, why would you deny yourself that experience? Like, I'm going to berate you basically if you don't do both. But if you can only do one, I think the movie is where it's at. I have already basically yelled at everyone I know to read the book and watch the movie.
00:45:58
Speaker
Unless they're actively dying, in which case maybe don't. Yeah, actually, that's probably the only people I would say don't. oh If you're actively dying, maybe maybe this is not the one for you because it'll probably break your heart.
00:46:14
Speaker
Okay. and Solid. Solid advice. So what is the, brings us into our quote of the episode, what is a seemingly small moment that stuck with you, leaving an impact most people wouldn't expect?
00:46:28
Speaker
I want to go with Carrie because I know she just wrote hers down. are you going call me out like that? i mean, it's written down. Mine's not even written down. It's all up here in my multitudes.
00:46:42
Speaker
This is, like, really hard. yeah
00:46:46
Speaker
Like, a small moment that really probably impacted me is, like, when I was probably in, like... middle school where I remember I was in this class where we had to write i because I was always like excited about writing, but never knew how I wanted to write.
00:47:13
Speaker
And I remember I had this teacher who told us to write a just like one moment, like a singular moment and like write it in as great detail, make it like Like make it where like it feels like you're in that moment, that one like a minute and make it super detailed. So it makes you feel like you're there as the reader.
00:47:37
Speaker
And doing that exercise has helped me with everything to have like a very big imagination when it comes to any type of creative writing or just like being in the moment.
00:47:57
Speaker
And like if I'm sitting there and I get inspiration really quickly because of that exercise or I can like I feel like I can sit here and like describe this moment to somebody else and make it sound like super exciting that's beautiful Lindsay what you got So I went with a more recent... I'm already laughing. said, Lindsay, mine's gonna be similar to yours. Carrie got all deep on us, so... I know. ah
00:48:27
Speaker
Now i'm just laughing at myself because of what I went with. should have went with Lindsay first. So a more recent experience was Carrie and I went New Jersey for a concert.
00:48:42
Speaker
And as we're driving through New Jersey and you can see New York in the background... carrie Carrie tries to take a video. And all you can hear is me singing in the background.
00:48:57
Speaker
ne How has that impacted you? it allowed me... laugh at myself and repeat that lyric and sing that song randomly every five minutes that's me with every meme it's okay but also it was like really you know it was the beginning of this concert experience so then I think of that and then I think of the concert life-changing
00:49:29
Speaker
and okay See, it's just these small moments. ah Mine is a very similar moment. Me and two good friends had ah really just kind of crappy, dramatic night and ended up being up.
00:49:45
Speaker
All night long until like 4am. And we decided at that point, there was no point in going to bed because if we waited one more hour, the donut shop would open. So we all get in the car. where it's ah it's a It's a truck. It's one of those like ninety s style bench seat trucks. And the three of us are all in the front.
00:50:03
Speaker
And... We're a little punch drunk because we're freaking tired at this point. And there was a pin, like a shirt pin with a banana on it. And it just said, you appeal to me. And for whatever reason, that was the funniest shit we had ever read in our life.
00:50:22
Speaker
And we just kept looking at each other being like, you appeal to me. And years later, we would still randomly text or call each other and just be like, hey, guess what?
00:50:33
Speaker
You appeal to me. And it would just like change the tone of the day years later. i am sad to say that both of my friends in that experience are gone now, but I still remember.
00:50:48
Speaker
And so that to me is one of those life of Chuck moments that will always live with me. As long as I'm here, that moment is here. So I carry that proudly and laugh about it still to this day.
00:51:03
Speaker
So that's it. The punch made it 10 times funnier too. Right.
00:51:10
Speaker
I, I swear, but you're, you guys telling me the, the car ride story of the New York skyline reminded me of that. And I thought, yep, that's going to be a moment that sticks with you guys.
00:51:21
Speaker
So Carrie's over here you know, deep descriptive writing. I got a little too deep. I should have been like, this funny vine affected me because I repeat it every single day. Really?
00:51:32
Speaker
I've never been on live television before. ah going to see that kid in my dream now. Thanks.
00:51:42
Speaker
Well, guys, I think that wraps it up. Thank you for joining us on this very emotional journey. If you aren't ready to end the conversation or you think we missed something, head over to our socials and let us know. We have plenty to share and even more to say on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Blue Sky.
00:52:01
Speaker
If there's adaptation you'd like us to cover, check out the link in our bio for submitting suggestions. And while you're there, don't forget to check out our affiliate link for Libro.fm, our favorite place to find audiobooks while supporting local bookshops.
00:52:16
Speaker
Next week's episode, we continue our Stephen King theme with the monkey, which hopefully will be just as entertaining, but with a lot less tears. Until then, remember, you contain multitudes.
00:52:31
Speaker
We'll see you on the next chapter based on a book. Bye. Bye.