Chuck Palahniuk (L) and Clark Gregg at LA Premiere of Choke Monday Night 

Clark Gregg’s film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Choke premiered in Los Angeles Monday night at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. The film was enthusiastically embraced by a sold-out crowd and the screening followed with a Q&A with Gregg and Palahniuk.

Choke, the second film born from a Palahniuk book (Fight Club was adapted by David Fincher in 1999 and has developed a sizeable and loyal cult audience) will not disappoint Palahniuk fans nor those who appreciate dark satirical drama. The film is entertaining, hilarious and emotionally resonate.

Sam Rockwell leads a strong cast as hapless and slightly nihilistic 30-something Victor Mancinii who has never been able to move beyond an instable childhood with his gypsy, mentally ill mother played by Anjelica Huston. Mancini is a sex addict, pursing sexual conquest after sexual conquest but only if there is nothing in it for him emotionally.

Mancini’s adult life is a mess and he’s desperate to find some sure footing before it’s too late, and hopes to get some resolve about his past during visits to his mother, who is now living in a geriatric women’s mental hospital and who nears life’s end due to severe dementia.

Yes, this is a comedy. And a deliciously vulgar, perverted, politically incorrect and uproarious one.  Rockwell is wonderful – convincingly portraying the pathos that is Victor’s constant companion and the source of the story’s outrageous humor and emotional depth. The cast is terrific all around, with unwaveringly strong work from Huston, Kelly Macdonald and Brad William Henke.

Following the screening Monday night, Gregg and Palahniuk talked about the efforts involved in adapting a Palahniuk novel – books known for clear, crisp prose but with dreamy, esoteric, complicated storylines.

The film premiered at January at Sundance and received negative critical reaction. Gregg said that in the race to get the film ready for its premiere it was clear from the Sundance feedback that some additional editing was necessary. Gregg said that watching seven separate Sundance screenings gave him perfect test audiences to decide what things were working and what were not working. A new edit of the film showed Monday in LA.

Palahniuk was clearly happy with the new cut, which he saw for the first time Monday night at the LAFF. He said that watching the film reminded him of the pleasure he remembered experiencing the first time he saw the dark, hilarious and touching Hal Ashby classic, Harold and Maude.

Adaptations of Palahniuk novels will continue to provide hot material for the indie film scene. IMDb lists that Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters is currently in production with Jesse Peyronel directing. Gregg is a busy film and TV character actor, and Choke was his directorial debut (he also wrote the script). It took seven years for Gregg to bring Choke to the screen.

Palahniuk seems open to taking chances with new filmmakers and Gregg credited Palahniuk’s fortitude in hanging in for the seven-year page-to-screen journey as a critical reason why the film was completed, and now is readying for a September theatrical release. Palahniuk appears to be putting faith in another comparatively unknown talent on Invisible Monsters – Peyronel’s other directorial credit is 2001’s Swimming Out to Holly.

Palahniuk related some personal stories relative to Choke, as well as what it’s like to watch film adaptations of his literary art. The writer said the genesis for Choke was an idea he had about a seemingly successful white collar guy who is emotionally detached and desperate for genuine contact with humanity. This man, in Palahniuk’s imagination, pulls over his car on a roadside, gets out of the car, and lies down in front of the auto in the glare of the headlights. The man hopes that somebody will come by and witness him prone on the road in a state of stark vulnerability and take action to rescue him. This mental image provided the seed for Choke – Victor Mancini is a man who is so detached emotionally that he seeks comfort from Good Samaritans, strangers who will tell him that “everything is going to be OK.”

Palahniuk revealed that there is an unsettling trend or coincidental circumstances that accompany the translations of his books to film. Just before the film Fight Club was released in 1999, the writer’s father died. And now with Choke about to be released, Palahniuk said he has been sitting bedside to his ailing mother - an ironic similarity to Victor Mancini’s plight in both the book and film, Choke.

Share It!