The Triangle

Issue date: 9/26/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Fox Searlight Pictures Denny and Victor find love in unexpected places: Denny meets Cherry Daquiri at a strip club (above), and Victor falls for his mother's "doctor."

What do sex addicts, strippers, self-asphyxiation pranks and Colonial theme parks have in common? Absolutely nothing, unless one is referring to "Choke," the latest black comedy directed by newcomer Clark Gregg.

Delightfully unsettling, "Choke" is most definitely not a film to watch on a Sunday afternoon with your parents. Based off of the award-winning novel by Chuck Palahniuk, "Choke" brings viewers into the life of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a con artist who chokes himself at upscale restaurants in order to be saved by good Samaritans who, in result, send Mancini money following the incidents.

With this loot, medical school drop-out Mancini is able to keep his dementia-ridden mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in a private hospital, affording to pay off her medical bills through his continuous food tomfoolery.

As a sexual fiend, Mancini works as an 18th-century Irish servant at a Colonial theme park-picking up women on a daily basis. He and with his co-worker, best friend and fellow sex-addict Denny (Brad William Henke) work on recovering from their addictions, finding actual love with unexpected people and in bewildering places.

"Choke" is one of the most graphic films witnessed on the big-screen with an R-rating, yet it is much more than realistically gruesome and intimate. The film goes beyond straight-up sexualized scenes, revealing a profound, dark, romantic comedy.

Finding an actual personal connection with the "funny, exotic, sad, and unusual" work of Palahniuk, the director felt that, as wild as it might sound, all viewers could relate to Mancini.

Gregg said: "Our first experiences are all about hooking-up and you turn around at a certain point wanting more than that. You're without skills and I really think that the journey to the center of this is about a guy who is recovered from damage, by creating a false intimacy around himself-this saturation in dysfunctional sexuality. So when he actually meets someone that he really likes, he is physically and otherwise incapable of merging the two. And I suddenly felt that I absolutely connected to that. I have a feeling that it won't be that exotic to a lot of people."

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