Choke

In the pitch-black comedy Choke, Sam Rockwell stars as Victor Mancini, a sex addict with an ailing mother who gets by on the generosity of strangers who "save" him from asphyxiation. What his marks don't know is that Victor purposefully lodges food into his own throat and then scams them into feeling a sense of heroism and affection by letting them save his life. The dark choke joke runs throughout the film and experiences several different incarnations, ultimately culminating in a childhood revelation that helps click into place much of Victor's warped psychology.

Writer/director/actor Clark Gregg adapted the story from Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name. The result is a sweet and sour mix of comic and dramatic elements that occassionally grates but most typically flows along smoothly and entertainingly. Victor even encounters the challenge of a potentially serious romantic relationship with his mother's doctor, Page (Kelly McDonald), but ultimately finds himself desperate for less savory sexual activity with more complicated, meaningless females. The result is a hilarious film-stealing "fake rape" orchestrated by an internet pickup played marvelously by Heather Burns. At the same time though, Victor's mother (Anjelica Huston both in the present and in flashbacks) is slowly dying and stricken with debilitating dementia. And so we travel from sex farce to family melodrama. It's to the film's credit that the transition hardly ever feels strained. Somehow both the dark comedy of Victor's outside life and the melancholy sadness felt within his mother's hospital both go hand in hand.

If there's a flaw to this playfully obscene and dark-hearted dramedy, it's that when the credits roll, you're left trying to keep the fragments of story alive in your head. It's a film so slight and simple in its charms (however elaborately dark and strange the comic structure may be) that you don't want to forget it, but you just might. Nonetheless, there is certainly a satisfying movie experience to be had watching this little gem. It's twisted, funny, and occasionally so grimly tragic that you hope and wait for the funny to return.

Grade: B