Choke

Choke (2008) is a pitch-black comedy adapted from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, and you can watch online on iFILM. Victor Mancini runs a grim hustle: he fakes choking in upscale restaurants so the strangers who save him keep sending guilt-money afterward.

Sam Rockwell plays the sex-addicted con man, working days at a colonial-history theme park, hitting recovery meetings mostly to hook up, and using every dollar to keep his mother in a care facility. She's losing her mind, played by Anjelica Huston, and she guards a secret about his birth so strange that Victor starts to wonder if he's something other than human. Then there's Dr. Paige Marshall, the one person who seems to see him clearly.

Actor Clark Gregg's directing debut keeps the prickly, self-loathing edge that defines Palahniuk. It won't land for everyone, since the jokes run on shame and ruin. Yet Rockwell makes a man this unlovable strangely watchable. Stream Choke (2008) online on iFILM.