When life ends, cultures handle it differently. Some celebrate even during the grief, others are deep in sorrow. In Greek Orthodox culture, loss is something that shatters everyone’s hearts and the mourning is evident.
Greek Orthodox funerals don’t focus on the beauty of life in services. A bit, but most of it is about being fully immersed in grief and sorrow. Being half Greek, I had been to one or two memorials in life, but hadn’t been to a Greek Orthodox funeral service. Also considering my father is a bit of an unconventional Greek… I hadn’t stepped foot into a church of that branch of religion since I was a little girl.
The scent that reached my nose was incense, an athonite style incense, and wailing that still haunts my heart to this day. There was no reminiscence, no fond memories… just mourning. At 18, after the service that was held for a close relative of mine that passed away, the official cultural goodbye was heavy and broke me in ways I didn’t think were possible. Including because my relative’s cause of passing was the same as Chuck’s, which is why this film will be important to grieving individuals.
Any film with similar personal experience to the viewer is always important, but with something as sensitive as brain cancer, it’s more crucial than one would think. Life of Chuck shows the life of a 39 year old man, Charles Crantz, or “Chuck”, backwards. His life was cut short due to a terminal illness, specifically brain cancer, the same cancer the close relative of mine had succumbed to. Both fictional and nonfictional deemed as ordinary but actually were extraordinary. Chuck, a banker, my relative, a teacher. Yet both had impacts on everyday individuals. Teaching is an everyday ordinary job, yet teachers have a huge impact on kids and their development. That was my relative, who taught in some of the toughest areas in New York, including the Bronx. She treated her students like her own children. In the film Life of Chuck, like many who have lost loved ones to brain cancer, they’ll be able to see a glimpse of those they miss in Chuck.
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| The Life of Chuck (NEON) |
What spoke out to me is the dancing facet of Life of Chuck. In Greek culture, dancing is a huge part of it. In old photos of my mother and father’s wedding, there are many black and white snaps mid Greek dancing. Although “Opa!” obviously is not audible in the pictures, it was shouted many times. It was a key point in my father’s several Greek family celebrations growing up, same being for my close Greek relative who was also with him at these celebrations. Including during their trips to Greece. And just like for my relative, dance was just as important to Chuck, especially on what he thought would be an ordinary day.
We had recently gone into depth in a previous piece on the prep Tom Hiddleston and Annalise Basso had to do for this scene, and dance is a pivotal moment in this movie. Healing. On an ordinary day while walking from a banking conference, when coming upon a street drummer, in the movie Chuck takes the opportunity for an unforgettable moment. Even with his impending fate, he danced. In Greek culture, dance is sacred, celebratory and not denial, but defiance in the face of adversity. It helps ordinary individuals like Chuck and my relative celebrate life in the moment. It breaks any ties tethered to fear. The same liveliness in Greek culture reminds me so much of the dancing and vibrance of snippets of this scene shown.
While films about terminal illness can be triggering to grieving individuals, Life of Chuck is a film that will do the opposite. Most stories about death lean hard into either sentimentality or despair. But The Life of Chuck does something rare: it lets sorrow and joy hold hands. The dance scene, in particular, is where this balance shines. Chuck is dying. But in that moment—dancing to a street drummer’s rhythm—he is gloriously, vividly alive.
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| The Life of Chuck (NEON) |
For people like me, who didn’t get the healthy healing factor in grief, there are many things to help cope with loss. Things of the arts. Both movies and music are known to help people in their journey with loss, and in 2025 Life of Chuck takes a very unique approach. Instead of the trope of terminal illness from start to finish, it will follow Chuck’s life backwards. From the time of his death, where the world is collapsing after it (literally…) all the way to his childhood. It allows individuals with grief to look back on life in a healthy way. It’s a reversal that mirrors real grief. Because when we lose someone, we look back. We don’t just remember how they died—we remember how they lived. What they said. What made them laugh. What made them dance. To feel pain, but with the important dance scene included, also feel joy and happiness knowing that their loved ones like Chuck truly lived. Chuck isn’t a war hero, a saint, or a celebrity. He’s a regular man with a banking job, a mysterious past, and a quiet death. And yet, his life is presented as profound.
During the last year of my close relative’s life in the season of autumn, my father took us and another who had visited from Greece (in which she kept telling me I needed layers… I was already wearing a heavy sweater) and we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Witnessing artwork and pieces evident from lives lived thousands of years prior, including of our own culture. These people were only trying to survive in ancient times, they too thought they were ordinary. Yet had their artifacts and evidence of their lives observed years and years later. The same applies to Chuck. An ordinary man, whose death was profound and life had an impact on everyday ordinary individuals.
If you’re grieving the loss of someone to terminal illness: this film has been set up for healing and joy.
The Life of Chuck will be screened at the SXSW London Screen Festival, and will also be released in the United States on June 6th.