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 In cinemas Thursday [MA15+]
Director: Clark Gregg
Runtime: 89 mins
It’s been a while since the work of author Chuck Palahniuk has reached the screens; remember Edward Norton and Brad Pitt beating the crap out of each other in Fight Club? Now, in a cinematic adaptation of his novel Choke, bad boy Palahniuk gets a chance to play out some of the darker fears of our collective psyche. And Palahniuk is a strange fellow – if you can’t stomach some of his more extreme writing like Snuff or Diary, see if you can find out more about the man’s bizarre annual incarnation as one of a large group of messed-up Santas wreaking drunken, drug-fucked havoc in their hometown of Portland, Oregon.
Choke stars Sam Rockwell, one of Hollywood’s more adventurous actors, and a man who always seems ready to take on challenging roles. Here, he plays the beleaguered Victor Mancini, a very bored historical tour-guide in a seventeenth-century New England theme park. Victor religiously attends a twelve-step programme to deal with his compulsive sex addiction that sees him bonking other attendees during meetings. He also makes regular visits to his ailing mother Ida (Angelica Huston) who usually mistakes him for any of three of her long dead attorneys. Oh, and Victor and his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke) – whose status as a serial masturbator means he attends the same meetings – have a running scam at local restaurants involving choking. How else can he pay the rising bills for his mother’s care? But there’s much more to this strange character’s life, for through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Ida has some peculiar secrets about Victor’s origins; on top of all this, one of the nursing home doctors offers new hope for Ida’s condition, but it will require a significant donation of Victor’s sperm.
This bizarre, quirky, perverse, and often poignant tale jumps back and forth throughout Victor’s life, and it’s not hard to feel sympathy for him. Huston delivers a stand-out performance in the flashbacks as Victor’s misfit mother; her portrayal as a sufferer of dementia is particularly moving. Choke is the debut feature of actor-turned-director Clark Gregg – who plays Victor’s arch-rival, Lord High Charlie in the theme park – and I think we can look forward to more impressive work from these talented collaborators.
***½
TIM MILFULL
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