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Movie Description
CHOKE's protagonist, Victor Mancini, shouldn't be a likable character. He's an unrepentant sex addict who has sex with the woman he's supposed to be sponsoring. He purposely chokes in restaurants so that rich patrons will save him and send him money. And he sometimes wishes that his mother, who suffers from dementia, would just get it over with and die. But because Victor is played--and played quite well--by Sam Rockwell (THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY), it's hard not to have a little sympathy for him. He spends his days working at a colonial tourist attraction with his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), incurring the wrath of his authenticity-craving boss (Clark Gregg, who also directed and wrote the film). His evenings are spent visiting his mother (Oscar winner Anjelica Huston) in a private hospital, but she mistakes her son for men in her past and wonders when Victor will visit. But young, pretty Dr. Paige Marshall (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN's Kelly Macdonald) has a radical idea about treatment that may bring his mother's mind back, and Victor's devotion to his mother--and a desire to sleep with Dr. Marshall--makes him eager to try.
CHOKE rivals some soft-core porn with its abundance of sex, nudity, and adult toys, but there's more here than just the shocking and the steamy. This dark comedy is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, most famous for writing the book FIGHT CLUB. Like the adaptation of that novel, CHOKE is a surefire cult favorite that meditates on the themes of culture, religion, fathers, sexuality, and identity. It's a mean, misanthropic film at times, but similar to its protagonist, it's hard not to like. Gregg has made an assured directorial debut, and his script retains the blackly humorous tone of the novel., Though FIGHT CLUB has reached cult status, CHOKE is surprisingly only the second of writer Chuck Palahniuk's novels to make it to the screen. This adaptation from actor-writer-director Clark Gregg stars Sam Rockwell as a man with a sex addiction. Anjelica Huston, Brad William Henke, and Kelly Macdonald costar in this darkly comic film that charmed Sundance audiences.
Industry Reviews
3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Gregg has achieved something unique -- part Wes Anderson, part Mel Brooks -- and a rare American comedy that is simultaneously brainy and unafraid to be in touch with the human body."
Box Office - Ray Greene (09/01/2008)
"[Mr. Rockwell] distills a skeptical attitude of an under-40 everyman from the educated class: bored and cynical, concealing his hurt under layers of defiance, sarcasm and feigned indifference. Mr. Rockwell makes you see all the layers as well as feel the pain that lies beneath."
New York Times - Stephen Holden (09/26/2008)
"CHOKE has a stylized synthetic zaniness...it builds its motifs into an amusing neurotic playground....It's an indelibly warped cartoon of lust and despair." -- Grade: B+
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (10/03/2008)
"Sam Rockwell's Victor Mancini is still as sleazy and sad as the version Palahniuk originally penned, but Rockwell brings out a certain sympathy in the audience....Black-hearted romantics will find CHOKE easy to swallow."
Premiere - Jenni Miller (09/25/2008)
3 stars out of 5 -- "[The film] utilises Palahniuk's droll dialogue whenever he can in a series of self-effacing voiceovers that star Sam Rockwell delivers with aplomb."
Empire - Phil Wilding (12/01/2008)
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