Will fans of Palahniuk's novel 'Choke' on the movie?

“Choke” writer-director Clark Gregg -– best known these days for his role opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the CBS sitcom “The New Adventures of Old Christine” -– spent two years trying to write a faithful adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel before he took the writer’s advice and finally started to improvise.

“He feels his books are channeling the philosophies of other people,” Gregg said of Palahniuk at a packed screening of the film Thursday.

“He said, ‘Don’t be too faithful.’ … To get more to the essence of the book, I had to go off it a little bit.”

“Choke” is the heartwarming story of a sex addict and scam artist with a mother complex –- a film certain to present its own marketing challenges for Fox Searchlight and one that played to mixed reviews at the festival this year (though it got several belly laughs at Thursday’s screening, particularly during the opening scene at a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting).

Sam Rockwell stars as Victor Mancini, a man emotionally paralyzed by his sad, itinerant childhood and trapped by his sexual compulsion. The early-onset dementia of his mother (Anjelica Huston) forces him to abandon medical school and take up a scam in which he deliberately chokes on food to embolden a wealthy restaurant patron to save him, milking them for cash for years after.

Gregg has known Rockwell for years, but he realized he was perfect for the part of Victor after he saw him as a has-been TV actor in the 1999 comedy “Galaxy Quest.”  “It’s Hamlet the way he does it,” said Gregg.

During the “Choke” shoot, Gregg said that Rockwell had grown so familiar with the novel –- listening to a cassette of Palahniuk reading the book on tape -– that when he improvised in the film, Rockwell was actually speaking lines from the book.

Gregg didn’t realize until recently –- when Palahniuk fans started worrying aloud on their blogs -- how highly anticipated his film had become among that “rabid and vast” network of readers.

“Fortunately,” Gregg quipped, “I haven’t found any black cars following me yet.”

"Choke" opens in theaters Aug. 1st.

-- Gina Piccalo

PHOTO: Clark Gregg, left, directed "Choke," a Sundance Film Festival entry adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, right. Photo shot on Wednesday, January 23, 2008. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[amber]

i can not wait to see this movie...i love when books are brought to life, (screen), so i can see how much different they actually are than how they appeared in my head....