Review: Choke

Director Clark Gregg has to have some serious balls. Why else would he take on the task of adapting an unadaptable book, to say nothing of the fact that it's the second Chuck Palahniuk novel to be bought to film, after a little movie called "Fight Club"? The fact is that no filmmaker could have fully adapted "Choke," mostly because the book is pornographic and a straight adaptation wouldn't have made it past the MPAA. With this in mind, Gregg has done a pretty great job of bringing the sordid tale to life.

The film is the story of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), med-school dropout, sex addict and all-around terrible human being. He fakes choking episodes in restaurants in order to cover his mother Ada's (Anjelica Huston) medical bills. The logic? Once somebody saves your life, they feel protective of you to the point of taking responsibility for you like a child. His only friend is Denny (Brad William Henke), a masturbation addict who frequents 12-step meetings with Victor. However, where Denny is actually trying to get better, Victor could care less. What's so strange about Victor is that he's fully aware of the fact that he's a horrible person, and sees nothing particularly wrong with it.

Then, he meets Paige (Kelly MacDonald), his mother's nurse, and everything comes unhinged. I won't spoil anything particularly huge, but she manages to convince Victor of what to him is the worst possible thing imaginable, relating to his true origins. This forces Victor to confront his station in life and his addiction, which leads him to forcibly shove himself down the rabbit hole of depravity, running desperately from having to feel anything resembling an emotion. He also has to deal with Denny falling in love with a stripper, for Victor refuses to believe that anything deeper than lust can exist in people like him.

Gregg brings some devilishly funny touches to the table. Often, when Victor looks at anybody, the film cuts abruptly to them naked, or to a flashback to Victor having already conquered them, which puts us right inside his head. What really does the trick, though, is Rockwell's performance as Victor. He's the perfect actor for a part like this, because at the core, we are supposed to like Victor, or at least empathize with him, or if nothing else, laugh at the sheer misery of his life. In the hands of a lesser actor, he would've just been a prick, but the perpectual twinkle in Rockwell's eye allows for him to be endearing even as he's answering online wanted ads for fake-rape fantasies.

It's unfair to say that "Choke" is or isn't good because of its relation to the book. The book is a modern masterpiece, and it's inevitable that things have to be excised or retooled. As a film, on its own, "Choke" is stellar. It pulls off that most difficult of tricks, tittilating at the same time it manages to have something to say. Deeper than that, Gregg had it right when he set out to adapt the book: "I saw it as a punk rock love story." Amen.