Thursday, September 25, 2008

Choke


Weak hearts will choke but if you love perverse humor then Choke, based on a novel by the seditious Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk will grab your throat and not let go. The story revolves around a sex addiction recovery group. The title comes from an obsession Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) has to force himself to choke on food in public in order that strangers will help save his life.
Victor visits his mother (Anjelica Huston as Ida Mancini) in an asylum, only she's his mum because she kidnapped him as a youngster. A typical flashback shows young Victor and Ida in a restaurant and the carton of milk has his "have you seen this child" picture on it. The other characters are just as bizarre including a doctor (Kelly Macdonald) who looks after Ida and will only have sex with Victor in the hospital chapel.
Victor works as an actor in a Colonial American village, a kind of tourist trap where people go to see how life was in the 18th century. Victor's boss, Clark Gregg (also the director) rides his ass whenever the least infraction occurs.
The humor tends to be graphic, for instance Victor imagines he's having sex with every old, haggard woman that walks into the frame. The sex addiction therapy sessions are pretty raucous too. I didn't even recognize the group leader (a problem with trannies) was Joel Grey until the end credits. Not for everyone, Choke consistently seeks out weird situations and then milks them for laughs. In fact, it kind of reminds of the type of humor that was found in 1970s era National Lampoon magazines.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home