“Chuck and Buck” is a moving and often repelling film that tells the story of a man whose emotional development stopped during puberty. Chuck–who, tellingly, now prefers to be called Charlie–is a nattily dressed, L.A.-based music mogul played by Chris Weitz (who also wrote “Antz” and co-directed “American Pie.”) His childhood friend, Buck, is a lollipop-sucking, twitching and sputtering manchild who is living at home when his mother dies after the opening scene’s coughing fit. Michael White, who plays Buck, also wrote the black comedy’s screenplay.
After they’re reunited at his mother’s funeral, Buck moves to Los Angeles to be closer to Chuck. Some of the film’s biggest guffaws come from watching child-like Buck negotiate his way through the social politics and phoniness of Chuck’s adult world. At one point, White–who is better in his first film role than several working actors are after a lifetime–excuses himself at a cocktail party the way a pre-teen would, leaving his fellow small talk chatterer adrift. In another, Buck congratulates Chuck on his “old-personny” house in front of a clutch of baffled, Armani-clad executives.
Buck’s struggle to reclaim the love he received from Chuck as a boy slowly turns into obsession, as the the loveable loser wrestles with very adult sexual yearnings–even as he fails to understand them. Many of the grimace-inducing scenes in this story about one boyhood friend stalking another are made even more forceful by the intimacy of the director’s lens. While it may be painful at times, “Chuck and Buck” is also a poignant tale of human loneliness that captures a wide range of emotions. The camera’s lusty, piercing gaze renders every detail, making the unlikely tale of “Chuck and Buck” as profoundly real as anything you’re likely to see at the movies this year.
