Darkly driven and all the better for it

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2007)

Christian Bale is fast becoming one of my favourite actors. After all, he was the man who singlehandedly got Batman back on track after the disastrous course Joel Schumacher took the series in. He'd already made a name for himself from a very young age with Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and then turned in a career making performance in American Psycho. But just before Bale slipped on the cape and cowl, he went through an equally striking transformation in The Machinist, a part that required him to lose a staggering 60 pounds. And its all up there on the screen for us to see.
Bale plays the emaciated Trevor Reznik. The man is a literal walking skeleton. When he takes off his top his ribcage is obvious to see. You can see his shoulder blades as well as his spinal cord. And his eyes are hollowed out. If you can sit through those scenes without squirming in your seat your made of sterner stuff than I am.
Trevor works a lathe at a local factory. He's alienated from his co-workers who are repulsed by his spindly frame. He hasn't slept in a year. And the only release he gets from his wretched existence are trysts with a hooker, Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and late night conversations with Marie, a waitress at an airport diner.
Trevor is haunted by a past he can't quite put together. After all, something is causing his insomnia. And his weight loss. A carefully directed chain of events, such as a mysteriously filled in Hangman puzzle on his fridge, lead Trevor into paranoia and despair. As well as visits from Ivan (John Sharian, a dead ringer for Marlon Brando), a person who only appears to Trevor. Its at this point Trevor begins to question his own sanity. And why did the opening scene show him dumping something rolled up in a carpet into the sea?
The Machinist is a film that obviously has influences from other films like Taxi Driver and Memento. All loners traversing a world seemingly at odds with them. Christian Bale gives one of the most powerful performances of his career. The fact that he was willing to lose so much weight (at risk to his health) shows how committed an actor he is. The lengths he will go to disappear into a character is truly extraordinary.
Bale gives a carefully modulated performance of a man losing touch with his humanity. Some of the dialogue from Scott Kosar is beautifully crafted around Trevor's character and cuts right to the bone ("If you were any thinner, you wouldn't exist").
Brad Anderson is a filmmaker with a talent for darkly driven psychological motivation. He's careful the way he showcases Trevor's increasing instability and fragmented mental state. There are some great touches throughout, like the ghost train ride Trevor's on at a carnival that turns into a frightening journey through the maze of Trevor's psychosis.
It wouldn't be half as effective a psychological thriller as it is without Bale at the centre of it. He is The Machinist's heart and soul. Two things that are gradually chipped away as the film progresses. Weight loss is also an excellent metaphor to signify Trevor's mental state. He is a man who wants to disappear inside himself. He's just not sure why. And he's a man who wants to reconstruct the puzzle of his life, without all the pieces.
The Machinist is also a film with a dark, brooding edge. The gloomy, washed out cinematography heightens the oppressive mood hanging over Trevor. And when his growing dementia starts to take on a life of its own, the images it conjures up are intensely weird and scary as hell.
The ending is a little confusing and a little commonplace at the same time, but I assume The Machinist is a film that once you've deconstructed its major plot twists, it will leave you with a sense of satisfaction as time goes on. But the climax definitely holds an undeniable charge, and that final scene is a surprising ray of hope in an otherwise depressing situation.
Kudos to Christian Bale for turning in another masterful performance, and for accepting a role that must have been an exhausting and physically demanding one.