Choke

I have not read the book on which this is based. Prior to this, I'd seen one movie based on a Chuck Palahniuk book (Fight Club), and read one book (Haunted). Neither inspired further interest in his work. Watching Choke, then, was more about the actors and hoping they would be able to elevate the story. Hell, maybe the story would even surprise me. One thing I can say about the two Palahniuk stories I've experienced prior to Choke is that they aren't mundane. Fight Club is bombastic and sweaty and malevolent, and Haunted is twisted and demented. Choke is neither of these. If there were any peaks and valleys, any quirks and weirdness to be found in the source material, Clark Gregg's script and direction have flattened them out. The result is a sort-of time-in-the-life of a guy with mental problems -- sex addiction, mommy issue, aimless, con man -- but none of them are presented with any kind of dynamic range or major import. His sex addition (sleeping with strangers) is never presented as disruptive or dangerous to his life; he just has a lot of sex with a lot of unfamiliar women. He works a low-end job, but it's never presented as a prison or a problem, even though it doesn't cover the cost of his mom's medical care. The titular premise of the movie -- that he makes himself choke in restaurants so people can save him and he can use that as both emotional support and a way to mooch off them for fake medical expenses and cover his mom's care cost -- is almost non-existent in the movie. There's a story, but it's hardly an arc -- more like a speed bump -- and there are many asides that are given time enough to begin, but few of them are brought to a conclusion. And when the movie throws a curveball at the viewer, nobody within the movie reacts to the curveball in the right way. There's a revelation about halfway in about the main character's parentage, and it is so far out of left field, it might be in a separate ballpark, and yet the surprise that is registered with the main character seems more appropriate to finding an extra item on one's tab at Applebee's that one didn't receive. The world of this movie isn't a normal world where something weird is happening; it is either a world where the weird happens so often it has become the norm, or everyone in this world is on half a tablet of Prozac and is too level-headed to react to anything. It's a credit then that Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, and Kelly Macdonald are able to charm this movie into being entertaining, in spite of the script's lack of topography. They bring a life and energy to the movie, especially -- no surprise here -- Rockwell as Victor, who manages to infuse Victor with a life and a mania that the script is just a hair's breadth away from supporting. They are the reason to watch this movie, taking an average lower-budget indie black comedy and breathing life into it. This is a movie with a ton of ideas, but a lack of ability to see almost any of them through, other than following Victor around for a while. I don't mind a good slice of life story, but there's a weirder, deeper, more provocative story that keeps peeking around the corner and then darting away, and it's a bit deflating. The acting carries this thing over the finish line to enjoyable, but only just, because I can see the movie this was meant to be, just out of the corner of my eye.