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The Daily OrangeGoes down easy
'Choke' redefines sex education with provocative humor and emotional lore
By Rebekah Jones
Posted: 10/2/08, 3:12 AM EST Section: Splice
Complete with confusing plot twists that somehow work, crazy yet irresistible characters and a ton of sexual content, "Choke" is painfully fun and the ideal guilty pleasure.
Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, author of the bestseller "Fight Club," "Choke" is nothing short of a demented hilarity. The movie proves to be a fine example of when great writing hooks up with solid acting to make cinematic gold.
Starring independent-film pioneer Sam Rockwell ("The Green Mile," "Charlie's Angels"), Academy Award-winner Angelica Huston ("The Addams Family," "The Royal Tenenbaums") and Golden Globe-nominee and Emmy-winner Kelly MacDonald ("No Country for Old Men"), the cast brings a dirty, confusing and occasionally uncomfortable chemistry to the silver screen.
The movie opens with a therapy group for, of all things, sex addicts. Victor Mancini (Rockwell) kicks off his hour-and-a-half long journey by having sex with one of his fellow group members on the bathroom floor. This explicit scene is a mere taste of what is to come, and it serves as a great opener for a movie about emotional and sexual depravity.
Victor spends the next 89 minutes searching for answers he never really finds, while sleeping with nearly every female who comes onto the screen. It's difficult for one to leave the theater without being impressed, disturbed and turned on.
Victor's mother, Ida (Huston), is on her deathbed at a nursing home for what appears to be the insane elderly. It's filled with old women trying to both molest and persecute Victor, who visits his mother often. Ida's dementia causes her to forget who Victor is just as she is about to reveal the truth about his father, a story Victor was denied as a child.
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