Chuck and Buck

The best thing from Mike White you haven't heard of

dir. Miguel Arteta, written by Mike White, with Chris Weitz as Charlie "Chuck" Sitter, Mike White as Buck O'Brien, Lupe Ontiveros as Beverly Franco, and Paul Weitz as Sam

Between The White Lotus having its highest ratings yet this year and his viral interviews, “Lotus” showrunner, writer and director Mike White’s visibility and renown has never been wider than it has been in 2025.

Retrospective listicles have popped up after the season finale suggesting other works he’s written. A few of them have the 2000 cult classic DV indie comedy Chuck and Buck on them. What’s odd about this is weeks before these lists were churned out, Katherine Dee mentioned the film on Substack Notes and I felt like no one ever talked about that film at that time. Even with The White Lotus’s other two seasons, no one was really doing deep dives into his filmography. If they did, they came back with School of Rock.

Sometimes even Freaks and Geeks – which I maintain not only has White’s best writing, but Judd Apatow’s and Paul Feig’s as well.

But there was a controversial scene in the latest season that made his 2000 cringe comedy particularly relevant for discussion. In the latest season, these two brothers – Saxon and Lochlan Ratliff – have a threesome with Chloe, a sugar baby away from her rich bald husband. While Lochlan, the younger brother, is losing his virginity to Chloe, he is masturbating his older brother Saxon. This jumble of innocence, heterosexual male panic and borderline molestation was explored more deeply in Chuck and Buck.

The protagonist, Buck O’Brien, tenderly portrayed by Mike White himself, invites his childhood friend Charlie "Chuck" Sitter (played by Chris Weitz [best known as producer of American Pie, along with his brother Paul who also plays Sam in this film]) to his mom’s funeral. When they catch up with each other in the bathroom, Buck hugs Chuck and inappropriately squeezes his backside. Chuck gets huffy and wants to leave, but his fiancee Carlyn (Beth Colt) suggests that Chuck look them up if he is ever in LA and Chuck – or “Charlie” as he now calls himself – reluctantly agrees. Cut to Buck moving into a dingy LA motel and writing a terrible play about how this wicked witch is trying to ruin the bond of two boyhood friends, inviting them both to watch the play on opening night.

Like much of White’s work, plot and story seem secondary to jarring scenes and monologues. In Chuck and Buck, that scene is the one where Buck tries to get Charlie to remember the childhood games they played, like when they would suck each other’s dicks: “Chuck and Buck, suck and fuck” Chuck says, with White’s playfully demented line reading.

Moments later, when Buck has the inept Sam – whom he casts to play the Chuck role in his play – over at his apartment, Buck tries groping him and Sam angrily pushes him away.

In the era of newfound gay acceptance, with Ellen DeGeneres coming out as lesbian three years before, “Will & Grace” becoming a hit NBC show and Sex and the City making gay male besties a fashionable accessory, these two scenes strictly read as explorations of gay panic. That’s how I processed them in 2000, when I was 24 years old. Now, even in the post-woke era, the discussion would be about whether Buck molested Sam and, more importantly, if it was because Chuck molested Buck and he was passing it on. Though this darker lens adds richness and complexity to the film, unfortunately the film still comes up short in its exploration. Buck grows up and moves on from Chuck, happily supporting him at his wedding. But this is a 2000s indie sex comedy, not Bergman, so this is forgivable.

What stood out when I rewatched it a quarter of a century later is how pioneering it was. Immediately notable is Miguel Arteta’s shoddy digital video aesthetic. It’s almost like this was built for streaming on a free platform (as of this writing, it is available on Pluto). But what’s most startling is how it was one of the few films – what’s more, one of the few American films – to sit in its awkwardness, centered around an unlikeable main character. This film was released one year before The Office (the UK version) was.

Ricky Gervais would widely – and rightly – be recognized as the reason this sensibility became so popular for so long. Then, years later, Judd Apatow’s film comedies would make a mint out of uncomfortable male bonding. But neither Gervais nor Apatow peered as far over the cliff as White did with this positively squirmy material. Even the soundtrack, full of twee childlike pop music (in order to underscore Chuck’s manchild outlook) was different from most indie films that dug for sixties and seventies vintage rock nuggets. It wasn’t until Garden State that indie films – especially of the mumblecore variety – featured indie twerp pop rock on the soundtrack.

In some aspects, Chuck and Buck is also the last generation of a certain breed: the shockingly hilarious gay film. Long monopolized by John Waters, the ‘90s saw a bunch of indie auteurs try to horn in on this subgenre, most notably Pedro Almodovar and Gregg Araki. Chuck and Buck could only exist at a time before gay marriage was a popular cause. When that movement gained momentum, gays and others under the rainbow flag had to prove how well they could assimilate. It is no accident that White got a lot of gratitude from the gay community for introducing the “evil gays” in season two of “White Lotus” – easily the best season. White remembers when “deliciously nasty” was a blurb you wanted on your film poster.

Mike White’s newfound, unlikely celebrity status hopefully means more people will discover Chuck and Buck. Will it make them laugh or squirm? Probably both. Chuck and Buck: yuk-yuk and yuck.