# Chuck & Buck (2000)

### reviewed by
Shannon Patrick Sullivan

    CHUCK & BUCK (2000) / ***

Directed by Miguel Arteta. Screenplay by Mike White. Starring White, Chris Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros. Running time: 95 minutes. This film is not yet rated by the MFCB. Reviewed on October 7th, 2000.

    By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN

Provocative, sad, funny -- "Chuck & Buck" is all these things, in measures unusual for a feature film, even an arthouse release. Even more unusual is the fact that the picture manages to be all these things at once, rather than tackling them in turn. It is a strange movie, moving in strange ways and telling a strange story. But it is well crafted and its subject matter inspires thought -- even if that subject matter is more than a little uncomfortable.

"Chuck & Buck" tells the story of two childhood best friends who reunite after years apart. Chuck (Chris Weitz) -- now Charlie -- moved to Los Angeles and has become a music producer. Buck (Mike White, who also wrote the script) stayed home to care for his ailing mother, and never really grew up. Buck is stuck in a weird kind of mental nexus between childhood and adulthood: he still wears clothes his mother picked out for him, still sucks on Tootsie Pops, still plays sing-along records.

Charlie and Buck are reunited at the funeral of Buck's mother. Buck expects their friendship to pick up right where it left off -- and perhaps more so, as he makes a half-drunken pass at his old friend. But Charlie has a fiancee, Carlyn (Beth Colt), and a life totally divorced from whatever he once shared with Buck, and makes it clear he is not interested in rekindling the old relationship. Buck follows Charlie and Carlyn back to Los Angeles where he insistently tries to worm his way into Charlie's life. Finally, Buck writes and stages a play, "Hank & Frank", in a desperate attempt to remind Charlie of what they once meant to each other.

Central to the film is the character of Buck, and White is more than up to the task of portraying such a complex, offbeat individual. White is clearly intimately familiar with his story, and manages to portray Buck as a bizarre man-child without making him seem exaggerated or unbelievable. The tone is set early on when Buck, bored after the funeral, asks Charlie and Carlyn, "Do you want to see my room?" in exactly the way he would have done fifteen years earlier. But Buck is not a feebleminded idiot -- he manages to make the move to LA and even carve out some semblance of a life for himself, albeit one which still hinges around Chuck.

Buck is made more complete a character through his interactions with two of the movie's supporting players. One is his play's director, the supercilious Beverly (Lupe Ontiveros, giving the film's most deliciously entertaining performance), who understands Buck but does not judge him. The other is Sam (Paul Weitz), an incompetent actor whom Buck nonetheless casts in the role of "Hank", his play's Chuck-parallel (in a clever bit of casting, Paul Weitz is Chris Weitz's brother). Seeing Sam as a substitute of sorts for Charlie, Buck attempts a relationship with the actor. Like Charlie, Sam makes it clear that he is not interested; but unlike Charlie, Sam opens the door for the two to continue a platonic relationship, providing Buck with mature interaction through which he is able to grow.

Buck, then, develops into a realistic portrayal of a stalker. Eschewing all the Hollywood stereotypes, he is not a menacing, calculating figure forever lurking in the background of Charlie's life. Instead, he is a forlorn man who almost plaintively tries to get his old friend to notice him. Buck's actions are repulsive and perturbing, but it is difficult not to feel some glimmer of pity (if not sympathy) for him as well. As is made clear by the fairy-tale stylings of "Hank & Frank", Buck sees himself as Charlie's putative saviour, and so while his methods are certainly suspect, his goals engender at least some measure of respect, no matter how twisted they might be.

That said, though, Buck is no innocent, no hero, and White does not forget this. There is an effective scene where Buck, attempting to bond with the young actor who is to play the youthful "Hank", lets the boy injure himself with fireworks because Buck himself just doesn't know any better. (Buck attempts relationships with all the "Chuck"s in the film, and none of them work out quite as he had hoped.) Buck is undeniably deranged; what makes "Chuck & Buck" so good is that there is more to the character than just his mental deficiency. It is unfortunate, though, that the movie does not delve more deeply into exactly how Buck came to be the way he is. There are vague references to his parents being "crazy", and presumably Chuck's departure was a shattering event, but a clear picture is not painted of how these things came together to make Buck the person he is today.

Weitz, disappointingly, fails to deliver a comparable performance as Charlie. To be fair, his is not nearly as meaty a part. But Weitz never succeeds in connecting with his role, meaning that Charlie seems to float through the movie without ever quite feeling part of it. This is not just a consequence of the distance that has developed between the two characters in the years since Chuck moved away; Weitz never cultivates the sense that a friendship ever existed at all. Fortunately, he is anchored in the movie by Colt, who delivers a solid performance in a difficult, compromising role as Carlyn.

"Chuck & Buck" is filmed in a grainy, low-budget style by director Miguel Arteta, but this generally does not detract from the film. Only a few poorly-staged shots belie the movie's humble background. For the most part, Arteta's visual style only serves to enhance the sensation that such bizarre, awkward, conflicting events can actually play out in real life. And, even beyond issues of denied sexuality and the implications of friendship, that may be "Chuck & Buck"'s most disturbing observation of all.

Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/ChuckAndBuck.html

_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |

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