Choke is weird: a personal quest of self discovery through worlds of sexual addiction and delusion, occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and absurd throughout. It shares several characteristics with Fight Club, most notably the author, Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote the novels that inspired both films. Choke drips with Palahniuk’s style: it has a clever yet mentally deranged protagonist who constantly makes snarky observations about human nature while surrounding himself with other deranged individuals; it examines the ugly underside of human nature; it has a twist, which managed to surprise because it provides a moment of reality in the midst of complete absurdity.
On the other hand, Choke lacks Fight Clubs hip, smart style. It plays jokes with a dry humor that doesn’t always connect immediately. It doesn’t really communicate what the story is about until it has almost finished telling it. None of these are really bad things, but they do make the film harder to swallow.
Choke follows Victor Mancini, a professional “historical interpreter” who spends his free time looking after his ailing, delusional mother and having sexual intercourse with just about every female that he meets. Victor tries to pull his life together as he attempts to coax his mother into revealing some long hidden secrets before her mind is lost to a degenerative brain condition. And he guilts people out of money by purposefully choking on food in restaurants in order to take advantage of the people who step forward to save him. Really, the premise is pretty ridiculous, as it feels like there have been too many quirks added Victor’s life: The sex addiction, the choking, the interactions with people at the mental institution, the fake colonial village. It seems a little contrived, and while it is very weird, probably too weird for most, the funniest and most poignant moments of the film occur when reality steps in and reminds the viewer that, yeah, Victor’s life is absurd. In the end, Victor Mancini’s journey is much more internal than Tyler Durden’s, a weird look at a profoundly messed up mother/son relationship, and the baggage that came with it.
The performances are solid, and the cast manage to sell the absurd world of the film admirably. Sam Rockwell (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Galaxy Quest among others) and Angelica Huston (The Addams Family, Prizzi’s Honor, many, many, many other films) deliver excellent performances of challenging characters, and the strong supporting cast provides a bizarre population for the world of the film.
The disc comes packed with an large assortment of a standard set of special features: Commentary, Gag Reel, Deleted Scenes, a Making of… There is an interview between director/actor Clark Gregg and author Chuck Palahniuk which examines some of the themes of the book and the process of adapting the work to the screen that offers insight into the artistic process, otherwise the special features don’t seem to be anything special, but at least they’re there, just in case you wanted to watch the trailers at some point.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, THERE IS A LOT OF SEXUAL CONTENT in Choke, so this film really isn’t appropriate for children of any age. Otherwise, there is plenty to like in Choke, even if you might have to spend a lot of time wading through the unadulterated weirdness to get to it.
Luckily, some of us love weirdness.
ComicsOnline gives Choke four out of five deviant sexual acts.
If you think that was deviant, you better keep coming back to ComicsOnline.com for more DVD reviews and everything geek pop culture.
