| Chuck & Buck The writer (MIKE WHITE) and director (MIGUEL ARTETA) of this film have twisted and Arteta usually directs films that deal with people on the firnges. He directed the critically acclaimed, STAR MAPS, where he met Mike White, the star and writer of CHUCK AND BUCK. Chris and Paul Weitz are also writer/directors who's work includes AMERICAN PIE. The brothers did a decent job at their first attempt in front of the camera. They have just finished directing CHRIS ROCK in DOWN TO EARTH due out winter 2000. |
disoriented the classic buddy movie into a tale of obsession and revelation in CHUCK & BUCK. After his mother dies, Buck (MIKE WHITE) searches for his childhood friend, Chuck (CHRIS WEITZ), who moved to Southern California 15 years earlier. However, Chuck has since become Charlie, a big-time music executive, engaged to Carlyn (BETH COLT) while Buck has remained the young boy who loved to play games in the woods with his best friend, Chuck. At their first meeting Chuck senses Buck's immaturity and decides to keep him at a distance rather than picking up where they left off as best friends. So Buck obsesses over Chuck from the theater playhouse across the street from Chuck's office. Here, Buck decides to put on a play called "Hank & Frank" that dramatizes their chlidhood. Buck even finds a Chuck look alike in the
Buck's fairy tale insults Chuck and he attempts to cut Buck out of his life forever but Buck is like a bad memory and doesn't go away until a compromise can be made. Buck tells Chuck that if they play one last game called "Chuck and Buck, Suck and Fuck" that he'll never bother Chuck again. Chuck agrees and plays the game. The movie even shows the men kissing. Chris Weitz is proudly a heterosexual bachelor who's not too sure of his chances of changing that status after this role and says this was the first time he ever kissed a man. After this night and a bit of soul searching Buck gives up his obsession with Chuck and goes on with his life at the playhouse. Finally, similar to Shakespeare's comedies, Buck attends Chuck's wedding and that's it, life goes on and Buck grows up.
obsession toward Chuck and Buck's attempt to use his play to entice his beloved Chuck. Although the film shares those Shakespearian qualities the way that it distorts classic Hollywood male-bonding film makes it more a post-modern dark comedy than a Shakespearian comedy. The film's director, Miguel Arteta, was interested in the story because any story with this much obsession rarely has a happy ending, he says, "Chuck & Buck looks at obsession with humor and compassion...it's the first stalker movie that looks at the stalker with a kind eye...If you're obsessed it doesn't mean that you're a sociopath."|
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