BY ALLIE GOLDBERG

In print | Published February 18, 2010

One of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk, has had two of his novels transferred onto the silver screen. Although both books are good in their own right, both moderately close to one another on the awesomeness spectrum, their respective movies are on opposite ends. We’re talking gamma rays versus microwaves here. The former, powerful enough to alter your DNA — or, at the very least, your outlook on life — and the other … well, it’s enough to reheat last week’s leftovers, but it’s still not going to make them clinically acceptable to ingest again. And I know movies-from-books are generally horrendous in comparison to the books, but the film adaptation “Fight Club” (1999) is really, really good. The other Palahniuk flick, “Choke” (2008), definitely leaves a crap-ton to be desired, however.

In Fight Club, we are introduced to a character who remains nameless throughout the story, though many Palahniuk fans have come to call him Jack (Edward Norton, “The Incredible Hulk”), who is leading a quite pathetic life, deriving the entirety of his “happiness” from Ikea furnishings and every chronic illness support group within a 40-mile radius. Jack then comes to haphazardly befriend Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), who positively exudes nihilism and every kind of savoir-faire there is. In short, Tyler is everything Jack could ever want to be, and then some. With Tyler at the wheel, the audience is taken along on a mind-blowing and seatbelt-less ride with Jack back to consciousness.

One of the best things about Palahniuk is the fact that his stories and characters are bizarre in the most fascinating way possible. Fight Club definitely falls into that category (what with the boxing club that involves more maiming than anything, the cult-wrought revolution named Project Mayhem, the woman whose favorite support group is for testicular cancer survivors and the whole making-soap-out-of-some-human-fat-found-outside-of-a-liposuction-clinic thing). And, rather miraculously, the film perfectly preserves the outrageous scenarios that Palahniuk brings to life with words.
How the director manages this I’m not entirely sure, but I bet it has to do with the phenomenal cast. In addition to Norton and Pitt, Fight Club displays the fine talents of Helena Bonham Carter, Meatloaf and Jared Leto. It sounds like a pretty slapdash cast listing, but each actor portrays the book’s characters so dead-on and so vividly that I hardly had to change how I originally envisioned them.

The cinematography has a hand in making the movie comparable to the book as well. Any feelings or moods that might normally become lost in translation from page to screen are preserved, and even arguably enhanced. A prime example is in the microsecond flashes of a smiling Tyler that one somewhat vaguely remembers seeing multiple times throughout the film. This is obviously (or perhaps not so obviously) a play on Tyler’s story that he once worked as a projectionist at a movie theater and, when bored, would splice single shots of porn into family movies.

Fight Club’s cinematography also upholds the one key element that makes the film version so legitimate: the formaldehyde-like preservation of Palahniuk’s distinctive voice. Nearly all of the chillingly nihilistic but oh-so-true punch lines from the book, which ultimately make the book, remain intact in the movie because they’re narrated precisely as they are in the book. Even though I’m a huge fan of Palahniuk’s penned style, I can’t tell which portrayal I like better.

I should leave you with some caveats and hints about Fight Club, however. First of all, do not watch (or read) anything by Palahniuk if you’re hoping for a clean and optimistic story. You will be dissatisfied and probably just downright sad. Second, the plot logistics of Fight Club can be slightly confusing. For future reference, Palahniuk simply adores psychological deviations — so if it sounds like a character has that rather unpleasant disorder you learned about in Psych 001, you can bet your last meal point he does.

Since the rendition of Fight Club is so amazing, I couldn’t wait to see Choke, the movie based on Palahniuk’s novel of the same name. Now, granted, I didn’t enjoy the book Choke quite as much as I enjoyed reading Fight Club, but it is classic Palahniuk nevertheless and still a worthwhile read. But as it turns out, even if I had never seen Fight Club, I would still loathe Choke all the same because, quite frankly, that movie blew.

Choke is about a sex addict by the name of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell, “The Green Mile”) who persistently, though vainly, tries to discover the identity of his father. To keep his dementia-ridden mother (Angelica Huston, “The Royal Tenenbaums”) in the intensive-care hospital she needs, Victor feigns choking at the priciest restaurants. He’s discovered that the rather wealthy performers of the Heimlich maneuver can be persuaded to send him checks shortly after. Meanwhile, Victor meets one of his mother’s beautiful doctors, Paige Marshall (Kelly MacDonald, “No Country for Old Men”), who offers not only to provide a way to cure his mother but also to translate his mother’s diary, which may reveal who Victor’s father really is.

On the whole, the actors do the best they can. The performances, though greatly overshadowed by the rest of the film’s shortcomings, aren’t bad, but there is something rudimentary missing from the characters. This is probably the fault of the producer or the director, as a lot of crucial narrations and flashbacks are completely omitted. Ultimately, none of the movie’s characters are quite as intriguing as are the book’s because they aren’t portrayed in the proper, ultra-satirical Palahniuk way — with witty commentaries and colorful characterizations. And without Palahniuk’s flair, his stories are pretty foul and creepy. This is exactly what happens in the film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’s novel “Running With Scissors.” While the film adaptation of Running With Scissors (2006) hardly misses a gory detail, Burroughs’ unique and captivating style fails to translate along with the plot, and the movie is borderline disturbing.

I know Choke didn’t have a blockbuster budget, but it definitely cut corners where it shouldn’t have. I’m not saying that Choke had to be a highly refined, Golden Globe winning masterpiece, but it didn’t even have the interesting quirk or charm that indie movies are known for. Nearly all of Palahniuk’s magic is in the presentation of his stories and characters. Therefore, in order to adequately adapt his writing to another medium, his voice better damn well carry over, too.

If you haven’t seen Fight Club yet, do so ASAP. (Though I advise you to make sure you’re in an emotionally sound state that day, as it’s kind of pessimistic.) Choke, on the other hand, should only be left to times of tremendous boredom — and even then I might suggest you alphabetize your bookshelf instead.

Allie is a junior. You can reach her at agoldbe3@swarthmore.edu.

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