Ryan McNeil
Expectations are a funny thing. Low expectations can lead to surprisingly good times…high expectations though, usually lead to disappointment. For CHOKE, the expectations could be written out in a mathematical equation…
1 avid fan of the author + 2 years for the book to be optioned + 5 years for it to be filmed + 2 month release delay
Wanna guess what it equaled?
Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a twisted soul. For starters, he’s sexual addict…the sort of depraved sexual addict who goes to addiction meetings to get ideas and meet new hook-ups. By day he works at a colonial village tourist attraction, the sort of place where elementary schools watch authentically dressed pilgrims make candles and milk cows. By night, he can often be found in local restaurants choking on food. His theory is that when a stranger saves him from choking to death, that they will feel a connection and become people in his life that will look out for him. Like I said – twisted soul.
All of this oddity aside, what really has thrown his life out of balance is his mother Ida (Anjelica Houston), who has been in a seniors care centre for so long that Vincent had to drop out of med school to keep up with the bills. As we learn more and more about her life, it become clear where Vincent’s odd nature came from. She seems to be slowly shuffling off this mortal coil, but when Vincent meets Paige Marshall (Kelly MacDonald) she gives him some unorthodox ideas that may save his mother’s life.
The story takes some odd twists from there, but I wouldn’t dare spoil them. This despite the fact that I found the movie to be a rather large letdown. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. The book is one of his more disjointed stories, and it seems to work against the movie. The story keeps circling around five different narrative oddities, but with a short running time of 90 minutes, the movie doesn’t really work any of those stories well enough to make them as interesting or funny as they could be.
The movie was reportedly shot in three weeks, and given the dull visuals, poor pacing, and bland storytelling I’m not the least bit surprised. Sam Rockwell does an admirable job, but much of his funniest moments only garner a crooked smile, as opposed to the disbelieving laughs they could have garnered with some better direction and editing. The movie completely wastes Anjelica Houston, giving her precious little to do, and underplaying her manic existence. Looking at everything that the film did wrong, it seems as though the studio and producers had no clue how to handle what they had, and just did what they could to put it out and be done with it.
Perhaps I’m a victim of my own expectations, since Palahniuk is one of my favorite writers. Ever since the film version of FIGHT CLUB, there has been a thirst among his fans for more of his stories to be turned into something visual. It’s possible that in the long wait, fans like me had their hopes much higher. Still, CHOKE is an unimpressive mess, and comes off like an essay written by a student who crammed it in the night before class.
I’m glad I’m not alone in my opinions. Gregg should be punished for turning Palahniuk’s work into drivel.
Good post, the trailer for this movie looked weird.
I didn’t think this was awful, but (shocker) my expectations weren’t nearly as high. I thought the trailer looked pretty bad.
It was pretty faithful to the book, but suffered mostly from (as you mentioned) the cheap look and lack of style, to put it simply. It looked like it was made for about $1 mil.
I’m in the middle of Survivor right now and thinking that it would make a pretty damn good movie…
1 ex-girlfriend who mentioned she liked the author once + 1 actor I liked in a couple other movies + 1 trailer that looked pretty good = we’ll see, but I bet that since my expectations are pretty average that I’ll come away liking Choke.