Book to Film: Chuck Palahniuck - page 2

19-11-2008This Month 19th Nov 16:45

After the 'success' of Fight Club interest was shown in another of Palahniuck's novels Survivor and although the rights were sold no studio ever took on the project.

The story involved the hijacking and crashing of a civilian aeroplane and since September 11th it has been considered too controversial.

But this week Palahniuk material is back on the big screen as Sam Rockwell leads an all star cast in the big screen adaptation of Choke.

Victor Mancini is an unrepentant sex addict who has sex with the woman he's supposed to be sponsoring. He purposely chokes in restaurants so that rich patrons will save him and send him money.

And he sometimes wishes that his mother, who suffers from dementia, would just get it over with and die. He spends his days working at a colonial tourist attraction with his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), incurring the wrath of his authenticity-craving boss (Clark Gregg, who also directed and wrote the film).

His evenings are spent visiting his mother (Anjelica Huston) in a private hospital, but she mistakes her son for men in her past and wonders when Victor will visit.

But young, pretty Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald) has a radical idea about treatment that may bring his mother's mind back, and Victor's devotion to his mother, and a desire to sleep with Dr. Marshall, makes him eager to try.

Choke premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2008,[8] where it won a Special Jury Prize for a dramatic work by an ensemble cast but has received mixed reviews from the critics.

And although there is little know about these up and coming projects the right to Palahniuk's other novels Invisible Monsters and Diary have already been sold.

Choke is released 21st November

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw