Chuck & Buck

The title sounds like a buddy-movie, but Chuck & Buck is a black comedy about the obsessive relationship between Buck and his former playmate Chuck. As children, Chuck and Buck were best friends, they did everything together, from climbing trees to innocent sexual games. Chuck has developed to a valued member of society, with a good job, an expensive house and a pretty fiancée. On the other hand, Buck is socially maladjusted, mentally immature and obsessed by his sexual experiences with Chuck. When he bumps into Chuck fifteen years later, he follows him to LA, in a vain attempt to demand some intimacy. It is typical that Buck gives evidence of his childhood experiences in a pathetically bad play, Hank & Frank, that he regards as a moving tale of the loss of a childhood friend, while the critics see it as a homo-erotic, misanthropic love story. The friendship between the two kids turns out to have lodged itself into the memories of the two men in very different ways. In his film, Arteta investigates the power and ambiguity of memory: what leaves an indelible impression on one, can be casually forgotten by another.Mental instability is occasionally portrayed as an amiable quality. Not here: the bizarre personality of Buck is not in the least appealing, but is worrying and alarming.