Choke Trailer: Palahnuik’s Slight Club?
May 28th, 2008 in Actors, Book-to-Movie, Indie, Movies, Trailers, Writers
It’s a given in Hollywood that if a book is adapted into a movie, and succeeds, the author will be inundated with offers for options on not only his or her previous work, but future works as well. The most recent example is Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the excellent No Country for Old Men, and whose last novel The Road will be hitting the cinema this winter (and considering it stars Viggo Mortensen and is being directed by John Hillcoat, I can’t wait to see it), and Blood Meridian out next year.
So it’s strange that after Fight Club’s cult success, it has taken until now to see another Chuck Palahnuik adaptation. Apparently, there were plans to make Survivor into a film, but were put on hold due to 9/11, although there’s still a chance that it will see the light of day yet. In the meantime, the trailer for Choke has been released.
The film concerns a young man (Sam Rockwell) who fakes choking fits in order to befriend good samaritans and eventually coax money out of them, all in order to fund care for his deranged mother (Anjelica Huston). The trailer doesn’t really reveal the plot, instead focussing on the film’s gags and Rockwell’s habit of preying on members of sex addict groups.
The best way to describe this movie is to compare it to another popular contemporary writer: Brett Easton Ellis. The hugely successful American Psycho was made into a movie which didn’t set the box office alight, but it did cause controversy, and also revived Christian Bale’s career. It was followed by The Rules of Attraction, and had some of the bite of the former flick, but in a very distant and forgettable. Similarly, while there are amusing moments of Choke, and a sour wit that feels like Fight Club, the trailer just doesn’t feel exciting or vivid enough. A lot of Palahnuik’s novels have recieved similar criticism, suggesting that without the kind of critique on hypermasculinity found in Fight Club, his work is merely another cynical disenfranchised perspective on modern life.
That said, Sam Rockwell is a thoroughly underrated actor, and has made some fine performances in films such as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Assassination of Jesse James…, and Welcome to Collinwood. Plus, it was received rather well in Sundance, receiving a Special Jury Prize, so perhaps the film can stand on it’s own two feet. Choke will be released in the U.S. in September.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Stumble it! / Bookmark:
