The writing of author Chuck Palahniuk is always going to be tough to translate from page to screen. His sardonic, scalpel-edged satire works fantastically in book form but it doesn’t work in film form unless under expert supervision (as it was with Fight Club). Unfortunately writer/director Clark Gregg (making his directorial debut and having only penned the thriller What Lies Beneath before this) doesn’t have what it takes to effectively communicate the words of Mr Palahniuk.
Sex addict and con-man Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) pretends to choke in restaurants so that he can form a relationship with the person who saves him and then, by using the experience to pry money from his saviors, he can pay for his mother’s hospital bills. However one day while visiting his mother in hospital he meets one of her doctors (Kelly Macdonald), who he starts to actually feel something for and wants more than to just sleep with her.
One of the problems of adapting a book, especially from such an author as Chuck Palahniuk, is the “voice” of the author might get lost in translation. The satirical essence of Palahniuk’s novels is key to why they’re such great reads, in spite of some of their shocking and often potentially offensive content. Screenwriter Jim Uhls did a magnificent job with Fight Club almost ten years ago but unfortunately with Choke, Gregg has failed to capture the magic of the original story. It still has the same general feel, the same atmosphere of black humour, but it feels more like imitation than successful translation.
The performances are what boost Choke into watchable and often enjoyable territory, that and the intermittent segments of whip-sharp dialogue. Sam Rockwell, an often seen but nonetheless underrated actor, is a quirkily compelling lead who really captures the essence of this despicable user. Similar to Palahniuk’s The Narrator character in Fight Club he’s the protagonist we like in spite of the fact he’s not really a very nice human being and certainly someone we wouldn’t spend time with in real life. But Rockwell, in a role very much suited to him as a performer, is very good here.
Supporting him are Anjelica Huston as his mother and Kelly Macdonald as the woman who manages to make him want something more than sex. Macdonald is going to do very well for herself, after proving she’s one hell of an actress with her small but brilliant performance in last year’s No Country for Old Men. It’s great to see someone from Scotland, whose actors and actresses usually only appear in TV shows and independent movies within the country, “make it in Hollywood,” as the saying goes. Huston is, as per usual, very watchable although she doesn’t quite work when she’s supposed to be her character’s younger self in the film’s flashbacks segments. Perhaps going with a younger actress, sacrificing continuity for believability, would have been the wiser decision.
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