Choke

Choke came and went pretty quickly this summer, which was a shame, because it is really good. Quirky and frequently tasteless, but always funny, it's based on a novel by cult writer Chuck Palahnuik. I had not read anything by him before, but as I write in the review below, I decided to read this book after seeing the movie. This I did, in fact, and I liked it a lot. I will read more (his most famous novel is Fight Club). The movie actually follows the book pretty closely, and does a great job of transferring its spirit and style to the screen, always a hard thing to do but particularly in this case because the book's impact is largely through prose style.



CHOKE

OK, you’re writing a screenplay, and you want to include all the elements from the following list: sex addiction, dementia, historical reenactment, aging, strip clubs, Jesus, masturbation, con artistry, salvation. Good luck. On the other hand, for a clue on how to proceed, check out Choke, written and directed by actor Clark Gregg from a novel by Portland writer Chuck Palahnuik (Fight Club), and winner of the special jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I haven’t read the book, but if the film adaptation comes anywhere close to doing it justice, then it is probably by turns offensive, darkly funny, and oddly thought-provoking. Chances are you won’t be able to put it down. But as the protagonist, Victor Mancini, is fond of saying, “There’s only one way to find out.”

Actually, there are two. I recommend you start by seeing the film. It’s about this guy, the ironically named Victor, who has a problem--or rather, several. He’s a sex addict who can’t commit to the recovery program of his support group (during meetings he has sex with the teen prostitute he’s sponsoring instead); his mother, whom he’s supporting in an expensive care facility, suffers from dementia and no longer seems, or perhaps wants, to recognize him; and his job as a reenactor in a colonial village for tourists is a little short on career satisfaction. Oh, and there’s his coworker and best friend, Denny, a compulsive masturbator who can’t keep out of trouble in the village (he’s always locked in the stocks) and who has fallen in love with a stripper at the club they frequent, Titillations. Not to mention the pretty young doctor who has taken over his mother’s care and whom he automatically hits on until he realizes he actually likes her more than he wants to have sex with her. Or the scam he runs on prosperous-looking patrons in local restaurants by pretending to choke so they come to his rescue, thereafter feeling so responsible for him that they send him money, which he uses to help pay his mother’s medical bills…

In short, Victor’s life is a mess. In the eyes of most—himself included--Victor is a loser. How he works his way out of the untidy complications of his life is the problem Choke sets itself, and one that accounts for the unusual trajectory of the film. It begins as a slacker comedy, gradually takes on psychological ballast, and finishes as a character study of a deficient man’s search for wholeness and personal salvation. Sex, slackerdom, and salvation--maybe you just have to see this one to believe it.

The irony at the heart of the film is that Victor doesn’t want salvation--he’s a loser by choice, a man who knows how haunted he is by his past but doesn’t let self-awareness stand in the way of enjoying his self-destructive behavior. Flashbacks scattered throughout the film reveal key details of his relationship with his bizarre mother, a delusional predator who repeatedly kidnaps him from foster homes to take him on cross-country journeys to nowhere, all the while haranguing him semi-coherently about how she’s teaching him to realize his special gifts. But Victor never surrenders to self-pity or even sentiment--he acts like a jerk because he genuinely believes he is one. Presented halfway through the film with the prospect of being something more than he is--way more (remember the Jesus element)—he declines, insisting he’s neither worthy of the honor nor interested. The casual sex is a bonus. But his callous, one-night-stand approach to life is clearly also his way of avoiding self-realization until he works through his Oedipal drama. It’s not the most original diagnosis in the world, but for a film that poses as a raunchy slacker comedy, it comes across as pretty heartfelt.

The cast inhabits the scruffy, fringe-of-society characters as if they’ve known them all their lives. Sam Rockwell brings a loopy charm to Victor, in a performance that could be a star-making one if this were a higher profile film. But chances are that too few will see it. Anjelica Huston tackles his mother, Ida, with a ferocity she hasn’t shown in years. She’s carved an interesting career niche for herself playing mothers-from-hell, as in recent Wes Anderson films (especially last year’s The Darjeeling Limited). But her best bad mama is still Lilly in The Grifters (1990), which resonates eerily with this film. In both, her she-wolf mother looses its cub--a commitment-phobic con artist--on an unsuspecting world, and both parent and child suffer the consequences. Here, she splits her screen time between the young femme fatale Ida in the flashbacks, and her aged, bed-ridden counterpart, bringing a poignancy to the latter that is heart-rending to watch. It’s virtually a dual role, and Huston is terrific in each.

Rounding out the major parts is Brad William Henke as Denny, who infuses every line of dialogue with such sweet-natured sincerity that he makes his character seem almost saintly, despite his tendency to grab his crotch at the worst possible times. And Kelly Macdonald makes the doctor into a winsome, innocent figure, the most sympathetic presence in the film. As Victor’s diametric opposite, she is not only the inevitable love interest but the necessary one, since no one else could pull Victor out of his self-exile from life toward salvation with as much authority.

That salvation—albeit of an ironic kind--is what first-time director Gregg and his cast have in mind is apparent in the religious imagery that permeates the film and the transformations of several characters’ lives through romantic love. These are fairly standard devices; unique to this film is the way it works changes on its two central motifs, sex and choking. Both begin as sordid aspects of Victor’s stunted existence, but by the end of the film have grown into the means by which he achieves his victory over himself and the inner traumas that have prevented his self-fulfillment. Heavy stuff for a movie about a guy who can’t keep his pants zipped up, but the details are less important than the goal reached. Director Gregg, despite this being his first feature film, does an expert job of walking a tightrope between the ridiculous and the painful, and of compressing all the disparate elements of the story into a whole so cohesive that its complexity is effectively disguised. In addition, he contributes a nice acting turn as Lord High Charlie, the insufferable master of the colonial village who makes life miserable for Victor and the hapless Denny.

Despite its attempts—usually hilarious—to be outrageous and offensive, Choke ultimately wants to be, and is, a rather sweet film about the importance of human connection, imbued with a wry but forgiving view of the ways that sex both hinders and helps us make the connections we need. To prove my point, it concludes with the single most romantic scene in a public restroom that I’ve ever seen, a nice summation for a movie that is by turns offensive, darkly funny, and oddly thought-provoking. Think I’ll read the book now.