Directed by: Clark Gregg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Brad William Henke, Kelly Macdonald
Plot: Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night, Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who "save" him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father's identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny and his mother's beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. Taken from www.imdb.com.
Chuck Palahniuk is quite possibly the most fucked-up writer in the world. A good writer of drama, his works are always accentuated by the dark side of reality that he brings out in each of his stories. One would be hard-pressed to find a single one of his stories that don't seem like they would make a good movie. However, to date, 1999's "Fight Club" directed by David Fincher has been the only film adaptation of one of Palahniuk's novels.
Now comes "Choke", a novel that is decidedly more lighthearted than the rest of Palahniuk's bibliography. While comparison to "Fight Club" is unfair there are a few parallels to be drawn. Some of the same themes such as a man with a seeming fear of true intimacy and a no-name loser abused by the system working against it.
"Choke" is the story of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a medical school droupout who works in a coloniel village attraction with his best friend Denny (Brad William Henke). Victor is a sex addict who basically goes to the meetings to pick up chicks. In his spare time he goes to restaraunts and chokes on food so that someone will save him and then they will feel in his debt and send him money that he uses to keep his alzheimers effected mother (Anjelica Huston) in a nice nursing home.
Victor's mother doesn't recognize him and one day during a visit reveals that she has lied to him about who his father is so he has Denny pose as him as the new doctor (Kelly Macdonald) helps him try and cure his mother through the help of stem-cell research and finds out he might be cloned from the holy foreskin of Jesus Christ.
Sam Rockwell is, as always, wonderful in this movie. This was a bit of new ground for him as he's less his usual "Hillbilly Brad Pitt" role and more of an everyman character than he usually plays. I found it strange how much he reminded me of Edward Norton in this movie and not just because of the fact that it was based on another story by Chuck Palahniuk.
Brad William Henke is lovable as the "Look at me, I'm a bigger loser than the main character" best friend. Henke's character has a problem with chronic masturbation and is in sexaholics anonymous to help him get over his problem. He finds support in a ditzy blond stripper: Cherry Daiquiri (Gillian Jacobs) who dyes her hair brown because Sam Rockwell tells her that skin cancer is common for blonds.
Angelica Huston is in what is quite possibly her strangest role yet (and I'm counting Morticia Addams) as Victor's mother Ida. Ida appears to be some kind of con-woman or just crazy miscreant on the run, it's unclear why she does much of what she does but it is possible that she has a severe case of dementia in the flashbacks as well as the present. She plays the part straight, which is probably why Ida is so hilarious. Huston doesn't try to act funny, it's her dry and dead-serious line delivery that makes it that much better.
Finally we have the ridiculously adorable Kelly Macdonald as Paige Marshall. Paige is a very mousy yet strangely confident woman. She's professional but something about her doesn't seem quite right. Of course, this being a Chuck Palahniuk story, something isn't. Paige doesn't seem like a very interesting character until about two-thirds of the way through the movie. Sadly it's not much of a change for Macdonalds acting-wise and the mousy-ness, while endearing, just comes across as bad acting.
If "Fight Club" was the most fucked up coming of age story you've ever laid eyes on, then "Choke" is the most fucked up romantic comedy you'll ever lay eyes on. It has the same basic formula of any romantic comedy but with those classic Palahniuk twists.Everything has a dark and quirky edge to it and that's what gives "Choke" all of its charm. It manages to be surreal as well as disturbingly real. As bizarre as things seem, Victor Mancini is a character that, just like Edward Norton's un-named protagonist in "Fight Club", just about everyone can relate to in some way or another.
I will come out and say that I have not read but the first couple chapters of this book, so I'm judging the film solely on its own merits. So all of you purists can kindly shut the fuck up and leave me to the review as I don't care what you have to say, I'll form my own opinion on how good an adaptation it is once I finish the book, till then you may join the "Wanted" purists and kindly go fuck yourselves.
The choking didn't play as major of a role as I thought it would, there are only really three scenes that make a big deal of it: one introducing the concept, one as a joke, and another as a flashback. Of course there's one final one at the end of the movie that caused the entire audience to roar with laughter, I won't ruin it but I'm sure you'll find it hilarious as well."Choke" is funny, cynical, and unapologetically obscene (one of my favorite scenes involves Victor having a one-night stand with a masochist who keeps interupting him and telling him the proper way to "rape" her.) but it's also clever and witty, the dialog is solid all the way through and the movie is filled to the brim with one-liners.
My only real problem with this movie was that it seemed too light-hearted. True the story is not neccesarilly bleak, but everything seemed too bright and cheery for what the story is about. I think this was the thing that hindered the film most, it made it seem like it was trying too hard to be funny and trying to overcome the pessimistic narration that tied the scenes together.
"Choke" will never hold the same legacy or appeal as "Fight Club" but it's still a very well-done movie that's worth the time to see if for no reason other than it's something new and different.
I give "Choke" a 4 out of 5. It's a good movie and you should definitively watch it and think about buying it.
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