Text-to-Screen Ratio: Naked Lunch Retrospective

(Editor’s note: As always, spoilers may abound for both versions here. Also, I have decided to stop scoring the adaptations as some versions do not seem to lend themselves to a numerical score. Instead, I shall simply discuss how each can be taken and related, mixing it with some film review commentary.)

While adapting books to film is usually a mutually beneficial process for both parties – studios for cashing in on a preexisting audience, publishers for being able to sell thousands of mass market copies with posters as covers – there are several instances where the subject matter doesn’t seem to lend itself to the film. One of the most high-profile titles was Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” a project which lingered in development hell for years and swapped through a score of directors before Zack Synder’s better-than-expected version earlier this year.

But if “Watchmen’s” story was seen as too intricate to be adapted to film, William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” was on the other end of the spectrum as too chaotic. While a seminal work that helped shatter literary censorship laws in America and inspired hundreds of writers and musicians, the book is a fragmented work purposely designed to be read in any order “like an innaresting sex arrangement.” There might be a narrative in there, but what the narrative is is open for debate, buried in metaphors and purposely provocative routines.

Fittingly, the director who eventually brought the project to the screen was one whose mindset came the closest to Burroughs’ reality: David Cronenberg. In films such as “Shivers” and “The Fly” Cronenberg demonstrates a proven interest in the concepts of infection and transformation, using science fiction as a tool to get deeper into the human psyche – all concepts that Burroughs used liberally in his writing. Perhaps as a result of this common wavelength, he does not even try to capture the original ’story,’ but creates something that feels both different and exactly what it needs to be.

At first glance, the plot seems bizarre but essentially straightforward compared to the original text. William Lee, a New York exterminator with a history of drug abuse, falls back on bad habits when he becomes addicted to his job’s yellow roach powder. After accidentally shooting his wife in the head while under the influence, he flees to the North African port of Interzone at the behest of a mysterious organization. Assigned to write a report on his wife’s death, he is caught up in a swath of circumstances including black centipede meat, a homicidal doctor, a coven of witches and entopomorphic typewriters.

While this disjointed construction includes little of the original book, this choice is actually doing something wonderfully different in adapations: being faithful to the author before the text. Burroughs was a pioneer in the “cut-up” technique, chopping written text, speeches and recordings up and splicing them back together. His theory was that in doing so, the true meaning of the text would expose itself to the reader, even suggesting it could serve as a form of divination: “When you cut into the past, the future leaks out.”

And in essence, what Cronenberg has done is played cut-up with the Burroughs canon. “Naked Lunch” uses parts of the original book, with the main character William Lee (Burroughs’ doppelganger and pen name) speaking the “Talking Asshole” routine verbatim and confronting the narcotics dicks Hauser and O’Brien. Opening scenes of the book are copied straight from Burroughs’ short story “Exterminator!,” right down to a discussion of roach poisons and elderly Jewish owner (“You vant I should spit right in your face?! You vant?”), theories on telepathy come from “Junky” and a discussion on an old queen named Bobo from “Queer.” And of course, the climactic shooting is based on the most famous story of Burroughs’ life, where he shot his wife Joan Vollmer in Mexico playing William Tell.

But simply presenting the stories would not be enough to capture the spirit of Burroughs’ work, and Cronenberg achieves this with truly ideal casting. Peter Weller nails the Lee character with perfect accuracy, evoking Burroughs’ appearance and drawling speech patterns in an author-actor translation matched only by Johnny Depp in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Judy Davis and Ian Holm are uncanny surrogates for their real-life counterparts (Joan Vollmer and Peter Bowles respectively), Joseph Scorsiani has the fresh-faced exotic look of the Interzone boys Lee lusts for and Roy Scheider has the quiet sociopathy one would expect from the legendary Dr. Benway.

And like in “Naked Lunch” the book, it’s never quite clear who or where these characters are. Davis plays a dual role as Lee’s wife and later Interzone lover, Scheider literally lives inside the skin of a woman and typewriters speak in the voices of exterminators. Both works leave the Lee character unsure what is real or simply the hallucinations of drug withdrawal, which in turn leaves the audience trying to interpret it for some deeper meaning. While the images frequently turn obscene or nauseating, they never come across as gratuitous – a minefield Burroughs expertly navigated for years.

As an adaptation of the book, “Naked Lunch” could never be mistaken for an exact translation, but after reading the book few people would want it to be. The themes are what matter, themes of addiction, control, conspiracy and excess – seeing, as Burroughs would put it, what is “on the end of every fork.” What is on the end of Cronenberg’s fork is a wholly different recipe than what Burroughs put together, but it uses the same ingredients and leaves the same sharp uneasy taste in your mouth.

Text-to-Screen Ratio: Watchmen

(Editor’s note: Perhaps more than any other article I’ve written, this is an article is going to be rife with spoilers for the both the book and the film, as both are so rich with references and points of discussion they have to be mentioned. If you haven’t experienced both, I strongly suggest you save this post until afterwards.)

It seems that adapting Alan Moore to the screen is something that needs a few tries before it’s done right. 2003’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” was an embarrassment, defanging the dark Victorian steampunk into a spectacularly laughable action film; while “V for Vendetta” completely converted the political story but kept concept and aesthetic intact (as I’ve said before). Last year’s “The Dark Knight” got even deeper, adapting Moore’s interpretation of the Joker from “The Killing Joke” and proving the mainstream would eat up his twisted vision.

And if there had to be a few missteps, it’s best to get them out of the way before the filming of Moore’s magnum opus, “Watchmen,” the dystopian tale of superheroes who have more issues than their enemies and a world always five minutes from a nuclear holocaust. Hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever and the only comic to earn a place on Time’s “100 Novels,” adapting it seemed like the sort of thing that could only end in tears for its fans – but history seems to be learning, as “Watchmen” is the most faithful of the Moore adaptations and also the best.

From the beginning “Watchmen” has seemed untouchable by cinema – each character, from the sociopathic Rorschach to the conflicted Nite Owl to the otherworldly Dr. Manhattan, has such a detailed back story and course of action that any cuts would detract from the characters. The book is littered with inside references that would never survive the transition, and recurring themes that demand multiple readings and even a three-hour film couldn’t hope to replicate. Directors from Darren Aronofsky to Terry Gilliam have abandoned the project, the latter even declaring it unfilmable (and when the man who made “Brazil” thinks your story is unfilmable, that’s a pretty impressive indictment).

The project is left in the hands of Zach Synder, no stranger to film adaptations with his admirable conversion of Frank Miller’s “300,” and he has carried over his experience in working with the source material. Each of the book’s chapters are presented in order, retaining the right sequence of events and the related flashbacks, and while the darker color scheme is closer to “300” then the “Watchmen” comic panels it’s still easy to recognize scenes and dialogue as copied straight from the text. Details large and small survive, from the use of thematically relevant billboards in the background to the growling text of Rorschach’s journal. It does lack the original soul in some places – particularly in early scenes where the dialogue has been rewritten – but those points serve as connectors to the truly important scenes, such as the awakening of Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach.

Of course, with a story as convoluted as “Watchmen’s,” some compromises have to be made. Virtually all the side characters – Bernard the news vendor, Rorschach’s therapist, the police detectives, the New Frontiersman editors – are featured briefly if at all, and the histories of Rorschach and Ozymandias are still there but trimmed to one scene. The original history of the first-generation Minutemen heroes is also trimmed, but they make up for it with an excellent opening montage of the heroes in American history set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” All wonderful elements in the book, but as presented their loss doesn’t cause a major problem.

The most notorious change in the book, the excision of the giant squid “alien” that Ozymandias uses to frighten the world into complacency, actually seems to work in the adaptation’s favor. By casting the attacks as if they come from Dr. Manhattan, it shifts focus to the main characters, making their final decisions as more of a personal choice than a reaction to an arbitrary conspiracy theory. For a book which is built around the personalities and worldviews of six people, an edit that adds to their characterization earns a tip of the hat.

On that note, the main casting of the film is appropriate on all counts, free of big-name actors and giving the roles to people who actually seem to give a damn about correctly interpreting the characters. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Comedian has the perfect swaggering brutality, wonderfully depicted in all the flashbacks from the graphic novel, and Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl nails the character’s resigned insecurity. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan are driven more by their special effects (excellent effects by the way, a constantly shifting mask and ethereal blue physical perfection) but Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup carry their respective characters very well in voice and unmasked performance, with Haley’s growl channeling Christian Bale’s Batman. Malin Ackerman’s Silk Spectre is less forceful but still convincing in her relationships to Manhattan and Nite Owl, while Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias is the weakest of the roles as he’s a touch too beatific for the role.

As it’s still a comic-based film, there’s as much emphasis on the characters in action as there is on their development. “300” showed Synder is no stranger to gore, and the film has quite a few bones poking out of skin and red-black blood spraying the walls. Some may say the scenes may be a bit gratuitous, but I diffuse that by pointing out: a) all the fight scenes were originally in the book, and b) if you seriously object to watching Rorschach beat police officers to a bloody pulp or Nite Owl and Silk Spectre teaming up on a gang then it’s time to re-evaluate your standards.

Of course, like “Lord of the Rings,” final judgment on “Watchmen” has to wait until the DVD director’s cut, which will incorporate many of the supplemental bits (“Under the Hood” and “Tales From The Black Freighter”) and are also likely to expand character roles. As it stands though, for a story whose creator is on record as saying it “could only work in a comic, and [was] indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t,” it makes the transition better than anyone could have hoped for.

Final adaptation score: 9 out of 10. I’m actually scoring this one a bit higher as while it does have many excisions, the amount of what they kept is so surprising and so well done that it overshadows the majority of the changes. Something that will please the devotees with only a few minor twitches.

Text-to-Screen Ratio: V for Vendetta Retrospective

(Editor’s note: With the release of the “Watchmen” film – and an upcoming Text-to-Screen Ratio of the same – I’m going to take a retrospective look back at another Alan Moore adaptation. Be aware of possible spoilers for both works as once again differences in ending will be discussed.)

With the first three entries in this series now complete, a pattern has likely become clear to my readers: I am a purist when it comes to adapting books to film. When I go to see an adaptation, I want to see how close they come to matching my vision of the book and how well they represent the little details I remember. Consequently, a film that deviates too much from the source triggers the critical part of my brain, producing reactions usually on par with the gut reaction of Star Wars fans after their first viewing of “The Phantom Menace.”

However, I do believe it is possible to appreciate an adaptation if it does something with the source material that isn’t perverting it, creating a story that stands on its own. “Naked Lunch” is a personal favorite, taking other William S. Burroughs’ works and biographical elements to create a truly nightmarish tale (which is perverse in its own way, but that’s fodder for another article). Another favorite is 2005’s “V for Vendetta,” developed by the Wachowski brothers and based on Alan Moore’s 1980s graphic novel, less an adaptation and more of a spiritual successor to the original.

At first glance both book and film seems to follow the same format: after nuclear war has devastated the world a fascist government has arisen in Great Britain, built on acts of genocide and total control of the populace. A mysterious character known as V, clad in a smirking Guy Fawkes mask, conducts a terrorist crusade against the regime with the assistance of Evey Hammond, a young woman whom he saves from the secret police. An investigator named Finch is assigned to the case, but finds getting into V’s mind may very well break his own.

But twenty minutes into the film, it’s clear that while the masks look the same there’s something very different underneath. The government here is depicted as an ultra-conservative regime rather than ethnically pure fascism, with the Leader a Big Brother-type of figure and Bill O’Reilly imitators controlling the airwaves. Opposition changes as well: while in the book V was depicted as an anarchist, more interested in “goring the ideology” of his opponents, the film’s V is a romantic revolutionary out to liberate the people and avenge his own treatment at the government’s hands.

The cuts to the story are so numerous you can’t help but think the Wachowskis set their V stuntman loose with his knives on the graphic novel and let him make the edits. Subplot about political intrigue in the government is removed, as is the bulk of V’s speech hijacking the airwaves to directly challenge the population and a LSD-induced epiphany from Finch. Brutal policeman Almond is removed, as is his battered wife Rose – a key player in the story’s climax – and his replacement Creedy is upgraded to the film’s main villain and resembles Dick Cheney heading the Gestapo. And that’s not even getting into the massive subtleties Moore’s works are vibrant with.

So why am I not crucifying the film more even with all these changes? Well, part of it could be because it has to be compared to “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” the other most noteworthy adaptation of an Alan Moore book, and it’s difficult to find a book more butchered by the transition to film than that. Short version is it turns a dark Victorian tale into a god-awful summer blockbuster, long version can be found here by someone far angrier than I.

Another part of it could be because the main characters are so well looked after by the actors portraying them. Hugo Weaving’s V may be less dimensional than the book, but the voice and theatrical attitude are perfect – particularly an alliterative opening monologue unique to the film. Natalie Portman has more steel in her than the book’s Evey, but she carries the same concerned tone and does very well in the gripping scenes where V tortures her into a breakdown and rebirth in the rain (the most noteworthy survivor of the transition).

But the core reason why “V for Vendetta” gets away with changing the story is that the changes are being made for a reason: to use the core characters in telling an updated message. The story is targeting the differences between liberal and conservative, removing the harsher edges of the original film and relating to the American political context of the Bush administration. V’s tagline “governments should be afraid of their people” takes on a populist tone rather than chaotic, in some senses going towards the role V set Evey up to take at the book’s end. “Vendetta” the film is at least trying to do something new with the story, updating its message in a way that resonates with the politics of its time, and I can respect that to a point.

And to offer some treats to more rabid fans, the film does keep to the skeleton of the original: the aforementioned Evey rebirth scene, the use of Beethoven’s Fifth as background music, lines such as “Ideas are bulletproof” and the image of revolutionary Guy Fawkes to blow up symbols of failed authority. It may not be perfect, but after “LXG” it’s a step in the right direction.

Final adaptation score: 5 out of 10. So many changes are made to the storyline that it borders on unrecognizable, but the film is well done enough that casual fans can watch it and appreciate the moments when scenes/quotes are copied in.

Text-to-Screen Ratio: Coraline

(Editor’s note: Possible spoilers below as per usual.)

Among authors, Neil Gaiman is exceptionally lucky when his writing is filmed, typically because he is closely bound to each version. In 1996 he devised the television serial “Neverwhere” and wrote an accompanying novelization, which is miles above most bland film tie-ins. At the behest of the Jim Henson Company, he later partnered with artist Dave McKean to write the story and screenplay of “MirrorMask,” a film I hold as one of 2005’s best and most frighteningly vivid. (2007’s “Stardust” does differ, but it’s an exception I haven’t seen or read so it’ll have to be kept out of this article.)

So when his children’s horror/fantasy “Coraline” was optioned as a film without his direct involvement there was some trepidation in how it would be handled – trepidation that disappeared on my part when I saw that Henry Selick would be writing the adapted screenplay. The high priest of stop-motion animation, Selick is responsible (along with Tim Burton) for twisting my childhood in the best possible way with “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and I held faith he would treat the story right. Thankfully my faith was rewarded – it looks more fantastical than the book, but at its core it’s the same dark inventive tale.

For the uninitiated, “Coraline” is the story of Coraline Jones, a bored young girl who is generally ignored by her workaholic parents. Exploring her old house, she finds a hidden door leading to an “other” world with parents who cater to her every whim, despite their odd quality of having buttons for eyes. The longer she stays in the world, the more she realizes that her “other mother” is not the doting parent she appears, and what seemed a wonderful escape becomes a prison she has to find a way out of.

Visually, the film is much brighter than expected, lacking the somewhat bleak look of the book’s illustrations (which were also done by “MirrorMask’s” McKean) and also the spidery gothic look of “Nightmare.” The other mother lavishes all efforts to sway Coraline, from a giant garden shaped like her features to an elaborate rat circus and dog-managed theater. All the scenes are marvelously well-designed, certainly changed to be more accessible but very cohesive in their bright exaggerated format.

Naturally the look changes the way some of the characters are conceived. Retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible go from being quiet and batty to outlandishly theatrical, almost reminiscent of the Darling Mermaid Darlings from the utterly charming show “Pushing Daisies”; while Mr. Bobo’s quiet craziness converts to “Nightmare’s” two-faced mayor with an outlandish Russian quality, enhanced by Ian McShane’s boisterous performance.

The biggest complaint to find with the book is the inclusion of a new character, Wybie (or “why born”), who is introduced as a foil to Coraline and someone for her to bounce dialogue off of. This character does more than any other to break the original story’s flow, showing up on a motorbike in a skull mask and sounding like the geeky support character in some toothless Saturday morning Cartoon Network show. As a whole he breaks from the book’s tone, particularly as it removes the genuine fear and worry when Coraline is left alone with her thoughts.

This isn’t to say the film takes the edge out of the book – like “Nightmare,” it’s a film most would think twice about taking their kids to. The other mother in particular is frighteningly faithful to the book, down to the tapping fingers and crunching of beetles between sharp teeth, and her evolution into a spiderish monstrosity makes full use of the technology. Teri Hatcher deserves high praise as well, putting a frustrated tone into Coraline’s real mother and a silken voice for the other that barely hides a mad possessiveness.

The world Coraline finds herself in is an illusion the other mother created, and as the illusion strips away the world gradually becomes more frightening. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible evolve from an eternal carnival into a hybrid contained in a taffy cocoon, while Mr. Bobo goes from hosting a rat circus to being entirely composed of the creatures. With the exception of the other father – riding a giant praying mantis as opposed to a blob-like monstrosity discarded in the attic – Coraline’s challenges match the book, and her final confrontations with the other mother match the tension Gaiman created.

Reviews of the book “Coraline” ranged from “fascinating and disturbing” to “deliciously scary,” and in that context the film certainly meets expectations. The core change comes in more of an emphasis on the fascinating, as it’s a film that wants to trigger your visual stimulation than down in your emotional core. I’m tempted to call it superficial, but the design is immersive and creative enough that such a word can never stick.

Final adaptation score: 7.5 out of 10. If you can forgive the use of Wybie you’ll find the film mostly faithful to its source material, and a glorious visual experiment that pairs well with Gaiman’s imagination. Just don’t go into it expecting the same bittersweet and frightening feelings the book provides.

Text-to-Screen Ratio: Appaloosa

(Editor’s note: This post is relatively free of spoilers, though plots and scenes are discussed regularly.)

When Robert B. Parker released “Appaloosa” in 2005, it was a move welcomed by his long-time fans. Parker has been the undisputed dean of American mystery novels for more than three decades, with his Spenser series of novels balancing a tough-guy private eye with a surprising amount of literacy and romance. His terse writing style and stoic characters falls right in line with the Wild West mythos, and his novel of freelance marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch was a perfect application of those strengths to the setting.

Parker’s books have been successfully adapted to other media over the years – a television show “Spenser: for Hire” ran from 1985-1988 and CBS currently has a series of films based on the Jesse Stone books – and while I haven’t seen them myself the reception from critics and Parker himself has been positive. So with the recent popularity of contemporary Western films such as “The Assassination of Jesse James” and “3:10 to Yuma,” an adaptation of “Appaloosa” made as much sense as Parker writing the original book. And to the film’s great benefit, it follows that book near perfectly.

There’s virtually nothing to complain about if you’re a purist for plot (as I am). The film follows the text chapter by chapter, as Cole and Hitch enter the frontier town of Appaloosa to break the control held by rancher Randall Bragg and make the acquaintance of the widow Allie French. All major elements make the transfer: shootouts that are over in a minute, encounters with Indians that depend on silent understanding, power struggles and shifting circumstances in a typically lawless town. It also keeps the all-important little details, with Cole reloading immediately after every shootout, constantly reading authors like Emerson and occasionally stumbling when using their words in conversation.

About the only major omission to the book is a series of moments where Hitch and Cole find themselves watching an Appaloosa stallion and his mares in the hills overlooking the city. In the book it adds to the silent understanding between the two men and later an undertone to the developing relationship between Cole and Allie, and its omission removes some of that depth. Some other cosmetic changes have been made, such as skimming over the original meeting between Cole and Hitch and changing the role of a key witness against Bragg.

But the removal of one or two scenes can be forgiven because the film preserves the greatest strength of any Parker novel: the dialogue. Parker’s characters feel natural when they talk to each other, particularly the long-running team of Spenser and Hawk, economical with their words but always real and quite often funny. The script feels like it has been literally copy-pasted from the book pages, not trying to transform it into an overly heroic Western or enforce unnecessary back story on Cole and Hitch. Such a transfer would fail on most books, but going off a Parker book a straight adaptation simply makes sense.

It helps considerably that the dialog is delivered by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, actors perfectly tailored to depict Parker characters. Harris has the weathered look and stone eyes of Cole’s seen-it-all yet focused attitude, but Mortensen is the star as he plays Hitch with a slightly amused grin and an eight-gauge shotgun draped over his shoulder. Cole seems to lack a bit of reserve from the book – surprising from the always stoic Harris – but the two preserve the sense of men who have known each other for so long they can have an entire conversation with only a few words.

The rest of the cast is hit and miss for matching characters. Timothy Spall is a treat as town leader Phil Olson, depicting the stuttering pompousness most normal men would have in reply to Cole and Hitch, but the major supporting characters are bland in their execution. Renée Zellweger is underwhelming as Allie, and Jeremy Irons brings a solid menace to Bragg but lacks the suggested subtlety. In the book both had more of a sense that there was something ugly underneath, an underlying need for control, and their portrayals don’t move deeply enough.

Thankfully though their character differences never affect their interactions with Cole and Hitch, which is really all I need out of them. Bragg knocks back shots of whiskey at a table with Cole and tries to lay down the law (he fails), while Allie tries to seduce Hitch to keep a man in reserve (she fails). These characters are there to provoke reaction, to show the code of honor neither man feels the need to put into words – Parker’s code, as at home in the untamed West as it is in the streets of Boston.

Final adaptation score: 9 out of 10. It follows the story without omission, adapts the dialog perfectly and picks up enough little details to regularly give a feeling of satisfaction. Parker fans will have a very hard time being disappointed here.

Text-to-Screen Ratio: Choke

(Editor’s note: This column contains spoilers for both the film and novel, chiefly because the ending of the film forms a major point of contention in the difference between both versions. Forewarned is, of course, forearmed.)

As I’ve mentioned previously in this publication, I share a love-hate relationship with the author Chuck Palahniuk. On one hand, I feel he is one of the most innovative and skilled writers currently producing content, with a truly immersive style and fatalism well-matched to his reader base. On the other, despite mastery of his style he doesn’t have much maneuverability, most of his novels featuring an apathetic young man with a crazy love interest and passive rebellion that gradually turns aggressive.

That said, I still hold “Fight Club” as a favorite book and film, and also one of the benchmarks for adaptations – so naturally there were questions when Palahniuk’s later novel “Choke” came to film. I consider “Choke” a weaker book than “Fight Club” but with its inspired moments, and in those terms the films do not differentiate. In comparing the film “Choke” to its source material, it fares much better, snaring most of what made the book enjoyable.

Plot-wise, there is little to no core deviation. Victor Mancini, failed medical student, sex addict exploiter and colonial reenactor, makes a living by pretending to choke in restaurants and collecting money paid by his saviors. With his mother dying in a nursing home, he is scrambling to keep her alive, until her new doctor proposes a treatment that will push the limits of his beliefs and morality. This story is unmolested on film, moving through chapters and only removing elements for repetitiveness.

Tonally the film “Choke” is much different from “Fight Club,” less of the latter’s brutal anarchy and more about apathy. Despite thematic similarities between the books it does not emulate its predecessor, going for more of a sitcom/real life feel. This turns out to be the right choice though, because the book’s tone was in the same area – Victor was never about beating a maître d’ into a bloody pulp, but about weaseling money and sex from people he faked a connection to.

Palahniuk’s writing has always been about bizarre vignettes and shock value, and the best of them make it into the “Choke” film. Victor and Denny wandering the neighborhood drinking warm beer from suburban slug traps to collect rocks, Victor’s mom inhaling drugs and setting animals free, Victor having anal beads trapped in their destination for a third of the text – all surprisingly survive. A particularly wonderful scene is transplanted where Victor, desperate to remain a bad person, answers a sex ad for a simulated rape, only to find his client a neat freak whose rules he breaks in a wonderfully explicit way.

About the only complaint here is the excision of the chorus element Palahinuk is expert in using, most famously “I am Jack’s [insert body part]” and the eight rules of fight club. “Choke” has two of these choruses: “See also:” and “[Insert term here] isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind,” and neither of them earns even one mention in the book.

This is a shame, particularly because Sam Rockwell would carry those lines quite well. Rockwell, a skilled actor who seems to find himself trapped in a series of average film adaptations (“Matchstick Men,” “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”), is tailor-made to play the unlikable angst-ridden young men Palahniuk’s canon revolves around. His character is played closer to Jason Lee’s “My Name is Earl” than Edward Norton, but again for the tone of both book and film it works. Victor (and Rockwell’s portrayal) is a weasel, squirming at the advent of morality rather than warring against it.

The rest of the characters are more hit-or-miss. Kelly Macdonald as Paige Marshall competently delivers the right lines, but her hidden craziness comes across solely as a monotone lack of expression. Brad William Henke’s Denny is softer than the book version but matches the film’s sitcom-esque tone, while Angelica Huston carries Ida with an unexpectedly regal air.

Despite small differences I found myself warming to the film, only to have cold water dumped on me by the excision of the last few chapters. The book ends when, responding to a news report, every single person who saved Victor from choking descends on Denny’s rock garden to contribute, only to realize en masse the scam he pulled on them. The film, by contrast, ends on a watered-down monologue and reunion between he and Paige that also extracts one of the book’s best lines (Paige’s “I guess that means I’m insane”).

“Fight Club” proved that altering a book’s ending can work – Palahniuk himself is on record preferring the film’s to his own – but it does not work in “Choke,” serving as a weak attempt to provide a happy ending where the original would have still worked. It’s all the more frustrating because they show the news report, building anticipation and then forcing an undercooked one down our throat. It may be an alternate ending on the DVD, but I view it only as a cop-out.

Final adaptation score: 7 out of 10. It comes surprisingly close to the mood of the book and a majority of the original text makes it onto the screen, but the watered-down ending takes away any possibility of a gold star.