Playing like an R-rated version of Scrubs, from its overbearing voice-over to its puerile depiction of sex, Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke can’t quit sniggering at its own jokes. In this respect at least, it’s a staggeringly faithful adaptation of the source material.
Still, it’s hard not to admire this project’s giddy sense of unreality. Victor (Rockwell), a sex-addicted college drop-out, pays for his demented mother’s (Huston) hospital bills by working in a Colonial America theme-park and by deliberately choking in restaurants and preying on those who save him. Everything changes when he falls for his mom’s doctor (Kelly MacDonald) and discovers the shocking truth about his father’s identity.
For all the quirks in the plot, for all the comically lewd sex scenes, Choke is, at its supposedly dark heart, a sweet, conventional rom-com, just with jokes about anal beads.
But where did the final act get to? It’s as if the film shoots its load then drifts off without so much as a thought for the rest of us.