An adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk (“Fight Club”) novel “Choke” is a black comedy that follows Victor Mancini (Rockwell), a sex addict who works as a Colonial War re-enactor and runs a con scheme that involves deliberately choking in restaurants and attaching himself parasitically to his rescuers, all to fund his mother’s (Huston) care at a private mental hospital. He is forced to address his intimacy issues when he falls in love with his mother’s doctor and discovers that he is unable to perform with the one woman he actually likes.
Actor-turned-director Clark Gregg shows he is as adept behind the camera as he is in front of it with CHOKE, a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of Colonial theme parks. Victor Mancini (Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park.
At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Henke) and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Macdonald), to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Choke is a 2008 black comedy film written and directed by Clark Gregg. The film stars Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. Production took place in New Jersey in 2007. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was purchased by Fox Searchlight Pictures for distribution. The film was released on September 26, 2008 and the DVD was released on February 17, 2009.
The film is based on the 2001 novel Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. It tells the story of a man who works in a colonial theme park, attends sexual addiction recovery meetings, and intentionally chokes on food in upscale restaurants so his “rescuers” would give him money out of sympathy and thus cover his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease hospital bills.
About the Production
Gregg was attached to film Choke in his directorial debut. Production was originally slated for 2006, but Gregg was temporarily occupied with a key role on the TV comedy series The New Adventures of Old Christine. By July 2007, Gregg cast actor Sam Rockwell in the lead role, as well as supporting cast members. Production began in the same month in New Jersey.
Filming lasted 25 days with a budget of $3.4 million. Gregg had acted with Rockwell in a play, and the director believed that Rockwell would switch effortlessly between the dramatic and comedic moments in the film.[6] A major filming location was the defunct Essex County Psychiatric Hospital in Cedar Grove. The hospital was considered a critical location by filmmakers, who believed that production would not have taken off without the discovered hospital, due to the project’s minimal budget.
As opposed to dark comedies that had a sustained tone, Gregg found Choke to be more tonally complex, and that it would veer between “extremely dramatic moments” and “absurdly silly ones”. The director sought to find a way to combine the two elements, drawing inspiration from the Hal Ashby films Harold and Maude (1971) and Being There (1979) and contemporary films like Secretary (2002) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). In addition, the limited budget forced the director to consider economical measures throughout production.
The song “Reckoner” from Radiohead’s In Rainbows was used to play over the film’s final credits. Palahniuk had said that the band would be writing the score for the film but a spokesman for the band later said that this was incorrect. The official soundtrack was released for purchase on iTunes on September 23, 2008.
Choke (2008)
Directed by: Clark Gregg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad William Henke, Kathryn Alexander, Kate Blumberg, Heather Burns, Clark Gregg, Matt Gerald, Teodorina Bello
Screenplay by: Clark Gregg
Production Design by: Roshelle Berliner
Cinematography by: Tim Orr
Film Editing by: Joe Klotz
Costume Design by: Catherine George
Set Decoration by: Kate Foster
Art Direction by: Matteo De Cosmo
Music by: Nathan Larson
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, nudity and language.
Distributed by: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: September 26, 2008
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