Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a guy so starved for affection, he’s taken to choking himself in public places in order to get attention, Choke is just as twisted and disturbing as its source material. Protagonist Victor Mancini, a guy who works as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park, is played perfectly in the film by madcap actor Sam Rockwell. A sexaholic who has a love/hate relationship with his dying mother (Anjelica Huston), Victor struggles with the abandonment issues of his past and tries to break his sexaholic habits by attending weekly recovery sessions. But more often than not, he ends up hooking up with other sexaholics for cheap, meaningless sex. Victor’s struggle is the central conflict in the film, which stays so true to the book, it doesn’t alter its bleak ending and often takes passages directly from the novel for the running voiceover. HHH
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2008.
