Book to Film: Chuck Palahniuck

19 November 2008

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Chuck Palahniuck has become one of Hollywood's most popular authors as Choke becomes the second of his novels to make it to the big screen in what really has been the year of the book adaptation.

The American writer shot to fame in 1999 when director David Fincher adapted his popular novel Fight Club, a process which took several years to get off the ground and complete.

Bringing together Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in an explosive partnership the film follows as automobile company employee who finds his only comfort in feigning terminal illnesses and attending disease support groups.

However, while returning from a business trip, he meets a more intriguing character--the subversive Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). They become fast friends, bonding over a mutual disgust for corporate consumer-culture hypocrisy.

Eventually, the two start Fight Club, which convenes in a bar basement where angry men get to vent their frustrations in brutal, bare-knuckle bouts. Fight Club soon becomes the men's only real priority; when the club starts a cross-country expansion, things start getting really crazy.

When the film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival it received mixed reviews and was fiercely debated by the critics. Despite grossing just over $100 million and opening at number one at the US box office it was not considered a hit.

But it was one of the most controversial and most talked about movies of 1999 and was considered a milestone for visual style in cinema establishing a cult following when it was released on DVD.

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

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