Dir. Clark Gregg, US, 2008, 89 mins
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Brad William Henke, Kelly MacDonald, Clark Gregg
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club was a wicked examination of the loss of identity for the disenfranchised male, discovering his ideology through masculinity, excellently adapted by David Fincher, it became a movie that turned off the masses, but garnered a justifiable cult following and regularly flirted on those ever-changing “best movie of all time” lists.
Choke is a much more personal film, not necessarily asking us to take a harsh look at ourselves the way Fight Club did, but at a sex-addicted Sam Rockwell and his morally bankrupt world of promiscuous sex, historical theme parks, and abandonment driven Heimlich manoeuvres (you'll see).
Victor (Rockwell) works as an 18th Century Irish servant in one of those theme parks, who covets every maid he sees whilst stumbling through his low-key existence there with his fellow schlub Denny (Henke). It's a job that partially funds his demented mother's (Huston) expensive private hospital care. The rest he subsidises by deliberately choking on his food at restaurants in the hope of being saved by Samaritans, who are only too keen to lavish him with financial backing. It's when Victor meets a young physician in the shape of Kelly Macdonald that he begins to question whether there's more to life than frivolous exchanges of bodily fluids and the F Word.
Bristling with magnetic performances, Choke is a twisted tale stolen by Huston's wonderful turn as Ida. Towering and intimidating in a series of revealing flashbacks, and vulnerably heartbreaking in a dank hospital bed, she is the focal point for Victor's journey of self-discovery, and during the film's final sequences brings an emotional weight to a film purposely void of it up to that point. Rockwell complements her beautifully. His brazen vulgarity drops like a mask during their brief exchanges, but he is at his best when arguing with his all too serious boss, giving pole dancers tips on avoiding melanomas, or skipping his sex-addict meetings to, well what else, have sex. Sounds detestable? It's to Rockwell's credit then that Victor is quite a loveable anti-hero.
Writer-director Clark Gregg strikes a very successful balance between what's blacker than black comedy, and the heart-wrenching story of matriarchal salvation. Choke is a film that asks you to laugh out loud, as Victor gets his latest meal lodged in his throat, but then immediately pity him as his longing for affection results in awkward embraces with strangers, all occurring in the same scene. It's a brave move that's symptomatic of the entire movie.
You'll find very little to immediately relate to in this skewered outing of an oddball, but there is definitely a lot to like with Choke's chuckles, and some truly excellent performances.
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