Gay Best Friend: Buck (Mike White) in "Chuck & Buck" (2000)
Monday, August 2, 2021 at 10:33AM A series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
Before his successful career took off, Mike White wrote and starred in the indie comic-thriller "Chuck & Buck."Mike White is an incredible talent. Currently on HBO, his miniseries The White Lotus has become a must-see weekly event. Between Enlightened, School of Rock, Beatriz at Dinner and impressive seasons on Survivor and The Amazing Race, White has been a great fixture of film and TV over the past couple decades. In honor of The White Lotus success, we thought we would travel back in time to one of his earliest performances and screenplays - Chuck and Buck.
The early digital film feels like a relic of another time, especially compared to White’s more polished HBO work as of late...
The advent of digital allowed more filmmakers a chance to tell their stories as they were able to do it on the cheap. Much of Chuck and Buck looks like a painfully awkward home movie. Yet, that only heightens the discomfort one feels while watching this odd, comic thriller.
We first meet Buck (Mike White) after his mother has passed away. Surrounded by arts and crafts projects and seen eating almost exclusively candy and junk food, Buck immediately comes off as an arrested development case. This sullen man-child gets an insane spark at his mother’s funeral when he runs into his old childhood friend Charlie “Chuck” Sitter (Chris Weitz). Buck appears smiley and smitten with Chuck and thinks they are about to pick up right where their childhood friendship left off decades beforehand. Chuck is in a very different mindset. He’s a successful record executive in Los Angeles who has a fiance, Carlyn (Beth Colt), and prefers to be called Charlie. Misdiagnosing Buck’s weirdness as a symptom of grief, Charlie and Carlyn extend a halfhearted invitation for Buck to hit them up if he’s even in Los Angeles. The minute they leave the funeral, Buck makes plans to visit and encroach on their lives.
Buck O'Brien: We could play that game, where I stick my dick in your mouth, and you stick your dick in mine... Chuck & Buck, Suck & Fuck!
Though we can sense this early on, we learn for sure by the end of the first act that Chuck and Buck experimented sexually in their youth. While Chuck has gone on and proposed to a woman, Buck still feels trapped in that adolescent infatuation over the conventionally handsome Chuck. Thus, he employs all of the typical high school tricks that someone would do to get a guy’s attention. He stalks him at work, shows up at parties that Chuck is at and pops by the house unannounced. Carlyn finds the behavior somewhat odd, but ultimately harmless. Yet, Chuck becomes more and more aggravated with each infringement of his privacy.
While Buck is very much a gay man, Chuck is characterized very interestingly by the script. He’s not some jock closet case who is suppressing his urges to be with a man. Instead, he is someone who experimented at a young age, may fall somewhere on the Kinsey scale, but is definitely happy and fulfilled with Carlyn. Sexuality is a spectrum, though Chuck would likely be the last one to acknowledge it. Chuck pushes Buck away because his actions are legitimately creepy, yes. However, Buck also represents a part of Chuck’s life and sexual awakening that he would like to suppress. Especially at this time, bisexuality or experimentation for guys was highly stigmatized. This natural part of Chuck’s growing up period causes him latent shame that he would rather push down than deal with.
Beverly Franco: Listen, about the script... I see it as a love story between Hank and Frank.
Buck O'Brien: You do?
Beverly Franco: Yeah. Don't you? It's like a homoerotic misogynistic love story.
Buck O'Brien: Oh. Well, it is what it is. I don't know. I mean, I wanted to write something like... like the kind of things me and my friend used to do.
As Buck senses distance between him and Chuck, he mistakenly ascribes it to Carlyn being jealous of their connection. The only way Buck can think to express himself is through the art of theater. Luckily, there is a children’s theater across the street from Chuck’s office. Buck speaks to the manager, Beverly (a terrific Lupe Ontiveros) and decides to rent it out for a one night performance. He begins writing a children’s play based on the close bond and subsequent fall out of his relationship with Chuck.
Beverly is an active part of what makes this subplot work. She’s curious and fascinated by Buck, as she decodes his writings and tries to help him process his feelings. It’s not that she’s some benevolent savior. In fact, she’s an opportunist who wants the play to be good so she can say she put on an adult hit. Her passion and commitment to theater is not matched by the level of work she is doing and she’s willing to seize any opportunity the world presents her.
Buck is unwilling to engage with Beverly’s psychoanalysis of his work, often working against her. Whether it be casting the wrong person or not letting her family attend, Buck eschews Beverly’s wishes in favor of his singular mission of controlling his relationship with Chuck, in play form. Perhaps his reticence to trust or listen to her is because she can see him for what he really is. He’s just another kid that she’s working with at the children’s theater, and she treats him as such.
He invites Chuck and Carlyn to this performance, which takes place in two timelines. In one, two kids go play in the forest only to happen upon a witch who injures them and tears them apart. The second timeline follows the now adult men trying to repair their relationship while on a quest to vanquish the evil Queen. The Queen is supposed to represent Carlyn as the barrier to Chuck & Buck’s relationship. However, as Beverly points out, it’s merely a representation on how Chuck and Buck were humiliated and how Buck defaults to misogyny to shift his problems away from himself. Needless to say, Chuck and Carlyn are not impressed by this performance.
When Carlyn confronts Buck days after the performance, Buck finally begins to vocalize his self hatred. He looks at his homosexuality as something “wrong” that Chuck foisted onto him, rather than something he wanted. He doesn’t want to be Chuck’s gay best friend, he just wants to be Chuck’s best friend. Actually he can’t stop at that, he wants to be his lover. In truth, these two wants constantly compete in Buck’s mind. He doesn’t know what he wants, so decides to want it all, which is unrealistic and damaging.
Everything builds to a sort of indecent proposal, with Buck using the last card he has left to lure Chuck into his bed. Sleep with me and you’ll never see me again. He weaponizes his own repelling personality for his gain. Chuck takes him up on the offer and they have sex. Buck isn’t just validated by their physical tryst. Chuck also confesses to Buck back at his hotel room that he remembers everything.
He leaves him with a simple “Goodbye Buck.” This appears to break Buck, who wants him to stay. Yet, this was the release that he needed to close the book on his stunted past. Chuck may or may not desire men to a certain extent, but he definitely isn’t someone who will be there for Buck. As if for the first time, Buck looks at Chuck without rose-colored glasses. It was never going to work between the two of them.
In the final scenes, Buck unexpectedly gets an invite to Chuck and Carlyn’s wedding. He attends, but something is wildly different about Buck. He’s not obsessing over Chuck and ends up making small talk with other people at the wedding. Fucking Chuck didn’t cure him of his issues, but it allowed him to close a chapter of his life that has kept him stunted.
Chuck & Buck is an odd little thriller. In lesser hands, it could’ve been an homophobic story that laughs at or fears Buck and his desires. Yet, Mike White has deft hands as a writer and actor and knows how exactly to play these tricky notes. Buck hasn’t made sense of his feelings and it has pushed him into places of extremism. Similarly, Chuck has merely suppressed him and Buck’s previous moments of exploration. Giving both men a chance to “give it a second go” allows for closure. They weren’t destined to be friends, lovers or even acquaintances. Better things lie ahead for both of them. It’s not that it ends with an “it gets better” message, but it does end on a note of hope. Buck will be able to be the captain of his own life.
Reader Comments (6)
This may be your best entry yet in a very strong series. White is so good in this, making a very difficult part seem effortless - and as you note, he’s matched every step of the way by the superlative Ontiveros.
Saw this in the theater when it opened and I still think about it all the time. It was a tough one to pull off. I don't know how Mike White did it. Been a devout fan ever since.
So cringe, but so good. Love pretty much everything Mike White touches!
Lupe Ontiveros won Best Supporting Actress from the National Board of Review for this film.
Shameless plug for The White Lotus! It's amazingggg! If you're not watching it, start now!
One of the reasons why Chuck & Buck is so precious it’s just the chance to admire the craft of Ontiveros (who is magnificent and deserved more occasions like this). Bravo Mike White!