A fantastical view of the world's sleazier characters, "Choke" is a surreal softcore porn movie where the story is better - and more appealing - than the sex but just as graphic. Self-proclaimed sex addict and medical school dropout Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), cons people into loving him by pretending to choke at restaurants and having others save him. He then uses these people for money to keep his dying mother, Ida Mancini (Anjelica Huston), in "nice" hospital facilities. Content in this wayward lifestyle, he meets his mother's new doctor, Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), who, with an almost angelic demeanor, manages to turn Mancini's life upside down by telling him he might be Jesus's half clone forged from the ancient holy foreskin. It's pretty mind-boggling.
Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, author of "Fight Club," "Choke" is a dark comedy about being trapped. From his job at an 18th century colonial theme park to his sexual addiction, Victor is a constant yet accepting prisoner of fate. In this state of arrested development, due in part to traumatic experiences brought on by his unstable mother, he has trouble finding the peace necessary to cope with his hardships. Upon hitting rock bottom, he turns to sex for the cure - vivid, explicit and humorously strange sex.
At first the bawdy exterior can be overwhelming, but the more you watch the more you realize just how effectively it binds you to Victor's perspective. Whether it's flashing a random woman's breasts or showing five second clips of him having sex with every woman that moves, Victor's constant need for temporary affection always gleams through.
Beyond this, the lewdness functions as the black side of the color contrast the movie straddles. Victor lives in extremes: He's either as low as one can go or partly convinced that he's the second coming. In this way, the abundance of sex functions as an extremity to be contrasted with the religious themes seeded throughout.
It's an interesting interpretation of the novel, and while hugging closely to the text, it manages to be quite distinctive. The movie concentrates much less on Victor's medical background and more on his sex addiction/balancing conflict, which keeps the movie focused and short (a lovely 90 minutes). The movie also accomplishes being both cynical and optimistic - a feat that will happily leave you contemplating your own place in the world.
David Stuzin is a freshman majoring in finance.
