Yet the pair\u2019s erotic misadventure serves a purpose beyond mere provocation. There\u2019s a poignancy in watching confused males fumbling their way into expressing their submerged affection that recalls 2000\u2019s Chuck & Buck<\/em>, Mike White\u2019s first solo feature screenplay. Twenty-five years on, it looks like an important blueprint for what was to come for the feted showrunner \u2014 but also stands as a document of male sexual anxieties that finds more thematic resonance without needing titillation to make the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No blood ties together Charlie \u201cChuck\u201d (Chris Weitz) and Buck (White, who also stars), two boyhood buds who have grown apart over the years. By the time the film catches up with Buck, now a stilted man-child grieving the loss of his beloved mother, that cherished bond now has the tenor of a parasocial connection. With little idea how to forge ahead into the future, Buck heads out west to Charlie\u2019s new stomping grounds of Los Angeles in a foolhardy attempt to regenerate the lost Edenic conditions of their shared past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Buck\u2019s hair-brained scheme progresses toward its culmination, the staging of a surrealistic roman \u00e0 clef play for an audience of one, the specifics of what he yearns for come into focus. The two boys engaged in innocent but intentional sexual experimentation in their youth. Although Charlie is now engaged to a woman, Buck still clings to the hope that such closeness might be possible once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet Buck never ties that intimacy to identity. In Chuck & Buck<\/em>, as in The White Lotus<\/em>, White does not set his characters on a trajectory toward adopting a new label for themselves in line with their carnal pursuits. It\u2019s not that these men are coming out by entertaining erotic prospects with someone of the same gender. Rather, an inexplicable urge can no longer remain inside. Without a more developed emotional vocabulary to describe the feeling, the only outlet they have is a physical manifestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Buck\u2019s kamikaze mission were pure hedonism, it would not explain his rejection of innuendos from one of the actors in his play, refusing to reciprocate the intimations by even acknowledging them as such. His Y2K, \u201cno homo\u201d-era environment is notably less accepting of gay people than the Roaring Twenties of The White Lotus<\/em>, where even a conservative-coded character like Saxon possesses some awareness of queer culture. No matter the culture around his projects, White\u2019s recurring interest is in how deferential male characters like Buck and Lochlan stumble into sex as an avenue for validation in the bodily language of which their confident counterparts speak so fluently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since characters on The White Lotus<\/em> trade in a hyper-literate dialogue that feels increasingly reverse-engineered to end up as a screencap on Evan Ross Katz\u2019s Instagram page, they have an easier time sublimating their secret desires. Buck is bumbling and inarticulate across every vector of expression, which makes the tension of his quest more nakedly tragic. As he resorts to increasingly desperate methods to keep his pipe dream alive, a truck could drive through the gap between his quixotic intentions and counterproductive actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s left unsaid between the two men in Chuck & Buck<\/em> most powerfully exposes the challenges of communicating psychological needs. Miguel Arteta, who directed White\u2019s script, deserves credit for recognizing the value in highlighting physiognomy rather than anatomy to get a reaction from the audience. He wrings excruciating tension from consistent close-ups that linger on Buck\u2019s face as he awaits the affirmation that always eludes him. The film\u2019s early digital video aesthetic, no doubt a byproduct of a meager indie budget in 2000, now enhances every scene with an aura akin to a confessional home video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s only fitting that what ultimately makes Charlie acquiesce and play \u201cChuck\u201d again for his old friend is seeing Buck\u2019s low-rent show. He\u2019s jarred at first, but Charlie finally understands the longing for the tender embrace of the familiar. When he finally consents to play along with their old horseplay, the camera notably lingers on Charlie\u2019s face as he\u2019s receiving \u2013 and not resisting \u2013 pleasure. Buck\u2019s fulfillment, meanwhile, plays entirely out of frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as the fallout from the incestual incident on The White Lotus<\/em> plays out primarily from Saxon\u2019s point of view, the consummation of pent-up desire in Chuck & Buck<\/em> marks a shift in perspective. What previously functioned as an unrequited expression of confused, conflicted love opens up into a two-way conversation. The transgression White pinpoints in these moments is not so much the acts themselves. It\u2019s in the possibility that those on the receiving end of such unadulterated exultation might be unable to resist being edified \u2026 no matter who\u2019s providing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Chuck & Buck” is available for digital rental or purchase<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/chuck-buck2-1024x576.webp\")
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