Friends forever?

Miguel Arteta's Chuck & Buck

by Scott Heller

CHUCK & BUCK. Directed by Miguel Arteta. Written by Mike White. With Mike White, Chris Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros, Beth Colt, and Paul Weitz. An Artisan Entertainment release. At the Avon.

Not since the antic heyday of Pee-wee Herman has the screen seen as perverse a hero as Buck O'Brien, the willful manchild at the heart of this poignant, challenging film. Twenty-seven going on seven, Buck is still camped out in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by Stra-tego and other board games, a styrofoam globe bursting with lollipops never far from reach. He's an emotional basket case, frozen in time and neediness. Yet like Pee-wee, he knows more than he lets on. Childhood is a hiding place, a refuge from adulthood, but also a vantage point for spying on grown-up desires. When the time is right, and the need for connection grows overwhelming, Buck can pounce. And he won't take no for an answer.

Fearlessly played by Mike White, who also wrote the script, Buck is the unforgettable center of Miguel Arteta's oddly comic character study. Shot in digital video, Chuck & Buck offers an unusual intimacy -- it's a great leap forward from Arteta's first feature, the Sundance-blessed Star Maps, which turned out messy and overwrought. Chuck & Buck whipped up a buzz at Sundance too, but this time the talk isn't cheap. If you've ever daydreamed about a long-lost friend, dialed a number, and then hung up when a voice answered, or nakedly confessed your love at just the wrong moment (and that makes all of us), then this is the must-see film of the summer.

For Buck, wondering isn't enough. When his mother dies, he reaches out and invites his best childhood pal, Chuck (Chris Weitz), to the funeral. Fifteen years have passed since the friends last played together, and their reunion is awkward. The geeky Buck stares a little too long, goggle-eyed that the kid with whom he romped in the woods has morphed into a handsome and self-assured man. As a writer and as an actor, White is unafraid to be unattractive. The way Buck watches Chuck is creepy. You want to know what's going on behind those glassy eyes and that open-mouthed, goony smile. Better yet, you don't want to know, for fear of what you'll discover. Chuck & Buck doesn't let you look away.

Chuck is everything Buck is not. He isn't even Chuck anymore. He's Charlie Sitter, a deal-making music-biz executive with a Hollywood address and an attractive fiancée (Beth Colt). He's a gallant guy, willing to pay respects to an old friend and then move along. But Buck won't leave it at that. He's not interested in the new and improved Charlie; he wants Chuck back. He makes a pass at his old friend and isn't deterred by the polite but firm rebuff. Instead, Buck insinuates himself into Chuck's life. He moves to LA, customizing a motel room with his toys and his vaporizer. He stakes out Chuck's office and visits his home unannounced. Finally, he decides to let art do the hard work. Stumbling into a children's theater across the street from Chuck's office, Buck decides to write a play with a message and hire the theater's box-office manager to direct it. Hank & Frank, it's called. He saves two front-row seats for Chuck on opening night.

Shaking off a nudgy friend is one thing. For all his contrived innocence and real pain, Buck is a stalker; you couldn't fault Chuck for taking out a restraining order on the guy, or at least punching him out. But this movie enables you to understand why Chuck does neither -- why he's willing to tolerate and accept, to draw the line and then smudge it a little. In a film that is idiosyncratically and superbly cast, Chris Weitz is the standout. It's a purely reactive performance, boasting none of the raw arias that White gives himself. With his perfect hair and clefted chin, Chuck has the gift of ease. He's a privileged creature who also happens to be good, like a fraternity president who truly believes in public service. Weitz comes to the role as an acting amateur but with some golden-boy baggage: he directed American Pie with his brother Paul, who appears in Chuck & Buck as the lunkhead actor Buck casts to play his friend.

If anything, Buck's drama skills are even more suspect than his social graces. Still, the scenes where his fantasy play is cast and produced allow White some marvelous exchanges with Lupe Ontiveros, who portrays the no-nonsense director-for-hire. The play is a "homoerotic, misogynistic love story," she bluntly tells him, and she's not far from the truth. The film asks us to identify with Buck's troubling desire, and to give a quiet cheer when he makes his friend watch the story he's chosen to spell out.

It's in that spelling-out that Chuck & Buck falters, forcing on the friends an encounter from their past that both have to acknowledge and replay. Chris Weitz's discomfort is never more palpable than when he's lured into bed by his once-best friend. Arteta shoots these difficult scenes beautifully. Yet sex limits the drama instead of opening it up; Chuck and Buck are channeled toward separate epiphanies that, though sweet and hopeful, feel unearned. Like the Tootsie Pop that's never far from Buck's mouth, Arteta's film goes a little soft at the core. Yet it leaves you plenty to chew on afterward.

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Chuck, Buck, and Miguel

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