Sam Rockwell plays Victor, an unrepentant sex addict, in this adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel which substitutes Fight Club’s hipster alienation for a different sort of psychological unease. Victor even goes to AA (Addicts Anonymous) classes to pick up willing sexual partners.

His day job involves him dressing in 18th-century garb at a historical theme park, where everyone is obliged to speak the wordy language of the day. His best friend (Brad William Henke) is a congenital masturbator and his mother (Angelica Huston) lies in a private hospital going slightly barmy.

Victor pays the hospital bills by pretending to choke in upscale restaurants, and getting first the Heimlich manoeuvre and then the financial sympathy of the good people who “save” him.
This strange plot, more than half comedy but with serious undertones, adds Kelly Macdonald as a doctor at the hospital, who prompts Victor’s discovery that love rather than sex might be the answer.

Choke is Clark Gregg’s debut as director, and was also adapted by him. It has some good performances and funny moments — the sequence when a female addict wants Victor to rape her on the floor without ruining the carpet being particularly cherishable.

But sharper direction and a less throwaway tone would have allowed it to add up to more.