Chuck & Buck
Directed by Miguel Arteta
Starring Mike White, Chris Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros
As homoerotic castration fantasies go, this wasn’t quite as good as last months Prada layout in GQ. Chuck (Weitz) and Buck (White) used to do the nasty when they were eleven and still too shy to talk to girls. Now Chuck is Charles, a big shot record exec and pretty dang hetero. Buck is 27 and twitchy, a child’s mind trapped in a boy’s body. When mommy dies, Buck has no one to turn to, so he begins stalking Charles and doing a little children’s theater on the side. He sums up his life and only relation in the sort of small time play that would be lucky to garner notice in a publication like this one. Buck blackmails Charles for one last go, threatens to hang around forever if he doesn’t, so he does and then he doesn’t have to anymore, since Buck found a new best friend. Thank God for small favors. Roll credits.
While the film is sort of a gay puppy love marathon, Mike White portrayed a character so real he creeped me out, and I always sit in the back near the thermostat. Ontiveros filled a great supporting roll as the house manager for the dinky theater whom Buck pays to produce his Mickey Rooney one-shot. After the critical success of Hank And Frank, she’s up to direct Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and then on to some Chekov or Pinter.
We all have a ground litter of ancient relations that date back to early childhood. Outside of an awkward reunion or two, what obligation do we have when these people have diverged from who we have become? That’s an individual decision, but sometimes you feel so sorry for these lost souls you’ll do what ever it takes to make them go away. Charles did.
