Sometimes a movie is well-intentioned but just doesn’t read the room of where culture is at. The Life of Chuck is like that. Directed by post-Christian auteur Mike Flanagan and adapted from a Stephen King novel, Chuck was heavily marketed to faith-based media outlets. I’m not sure why. The film is decidedly faithless, unless you consider atheism and “I contain multitudes” existentialism “faith.” It’s a film that tries—and fails—to find feel-good meaning in a world with no spiritual horizon. Unsurprisingly, the movie has been hailed by secular critics but rejected by audiences.

As I argue in the article below, Chuck is an example of pop culture that’s out of step with the vibe shift.

This vibe shift is still new and fairly fluid, of course (arguably less than a year old). I was having dinner with a prominent evangelical figure recently and he had no idea what I was talking about when I started going on about the vibe shift. Only with the passage of time will we gain clarity on exactly what’s going on and what exactly shifted circa 2024-2025 in Western culture. But something is happening. Maybe the opening lyrics of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” speak to 2025 as much as they did to 1967 (another vibe-shift year): There’s something happening here / What it is ain’t exactly clear.

It ain’t exactly clear. But cultural critics like me thrive on probing the unfolding dimensions of whatever “something” might be happening. I can’t wait to explore it further in the months and years to come.