Who’d have thought it? Chuck Palahniuk, purveyor of all things twisted, depraved, nihilistic and grotesque, wrote a romcom. Except he didn’t, of course; his novel Choke was as dark as the rest of his œuvre, but in its adaptation for the screen it’s been ironed out into a relatively straightforward tale of the redeeming power of love. On its own terms, this silly, amiable film works well enough, but the black humour and satirical edge in the book relies on the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the repulsive: take away the attitude and there’s not much left.

Choke the movie is reasonably funny, and the performances – Sam Rockwell as messed-up sex addict Victor, Anjelica Huston as the mum who did the messing-up, Jonah Bobo as the sidekick – are for the most part charismatic. It ought to be possible to judge the film on its own terms, and indeed to admire first-time director Clark Gregg for having had the audacity to step away from the Palahniuk brand. But it’s hard to imagine anyone coming to this without a particular set of expectations. Palahniuk has declared himself happy with the movie; for his fans – and, indeed, for fans of David Fincher’s Fight Club – it’s likely to be an unsettling experi­ence, for all the wrong reasons.