“Choke” adaptation can’t stand up to book

In the context of film, adaptation is a tricky and ephemeral art. Depending on the nature of the… In the context of film, adaptation is a tricky and ephemeral art. Depending on the nature of the source material, either meticulous adherence or complete creative interpretation could be the most effective manner of adaptation, and failing to strike the right balance between these two extremes can ruin even the most highly lauded original work. ‘Choke,’ based on the bestselling novel by Chuck Palahniuk (‘Fight Club’), is another entry into the seemingly endless class of films where adaptation just wasn’t executed correctly. As with all of his works, the world Palahniuk crafts in ‘Choke’ teeters precariously between gritty reality and modern-day fantasy, saved from the depths of ridicule by Palahniuk’s expert use of language, humor and internal monologue. Unfortunately, the novel’s extremely unimaginative adaptation overshadows most of these details, leaving the film a poorly paced, boring mess. In ‘Choke,’ Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a medical school dropout and sex-addict who cons hapless restaurant-goers by choking on his food and having them save him. He has to deal with his mother Ida’s (Anjelica Huston) impending death at the hands of dementia even as he tries to pry the secret of his absent father’s identity from her frazzled brain. Ida never recognizes Victor ‘mdash; always assuming he’s one of many men from her past ‘mdash; so he recruits Denny (Brad William Henke), his best friend and sex-addict support group sponsor, to become him in his mother’s eyes. In addition, Victor struggles with Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), Ida’s doctor, in order to try keeping her alive long enough to learn who his father is ‘mdash; while simultaneously trying to suppress his unusual feelings for her. However, the film exposes all these plot developments within the first half-hour, and the details fail to develop much from there. A great deal of the novel hinges on Victor’s amusingly morbid internal dialogue, where he diagnoses every passerby with fatal diseases and generally sees the world ‘mdash; including himself ‘mdash; in a terribly negative light. Almost all of this is cut out of the movie, which leads Victor to come off as nihilistic rather than as a deeply troubled and conflicted victim. A large chunk of the novel is also based on flashbacks to Victor’s childhood, when Ida would regularly abduct him from various foster families and take him on wild, lawless adventures, only to disappear without warning. These flashbacks are absolutely crucial to the novel, but they massively interrupt the flow of the film, to the point where each flashback is groan-inducing.’ On the bright side, the four principal characters all give exceedingly strong performances, with Huston in particular single-handedly rescuing the film from absolute mediocrity. Ida is a strong, intense woman, who even in the flashbacks might be completely insane, and Huston rides this line of mental imbalance flawlessly. In truth, ‘Choke’ is worth a viewing for her performance alone. In addition, the film does speed up and become interesting when the bulk of the flashbacks are over and Palahniuk simultaneously reveals all the demented plot twists. There are also a number of memorable, amusing moments spread out in ‘Choke,’ but they don’t do much to address the film’s issues. Ultimately, ‘Choke’ is simply not the type of novel that a director can translate to the screen. It would take a masterful adaptation to make up for the loss of everything that made the novel fantastic, and it would probably result in a film only barely related to its source material. The question looming over this film ‘mdash; as is often the case with poorly thought-out adaptations ‘mdash; is why it was made in the first place. Beyond Huston’s stunning performance, there’s really no good answer in ‘Choke.’