The Machinist

The Machinist

Starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, John Sharian

Directed by Brad Anderson

The "unholy Trinity" of personal psychological trauma includes "Pi," "Fight Club," and "The Machinist."  All three films feature a main character who's struggling through personal trauma that's deeply affected how they see the world, and the impact of their past mistakes that've come back to haunt them.  They're films that shine a light on mental illness and the often unspoken manner in which we deal with our memories that we wish would just disappear, but they never do.

Trevor Eznik (Christian Bale) is a machinist who has had a very rough year - in fact, he hasn't slept in 365 days.  He doesn't eat, and he's been reduced to almost a hundred pounds, a body that's the visible representation of his inner anemic state.  He doesn't have any friends, his co-workers think he's strange, and the only solace he finds is in kindly prostitute Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and airport waitress Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon).  One day he meets Ivan (John Sharian), and things begin taking a turn for the worse - he inadvertently causes a fellow employee to lose an arm, and he starts having visions and hallucinations, along with someone seemingly breaking into his apartment to leave a hangman message on his fridge.  Is he slowly losing his mind due to his chronic insomnia, or is there something more dangerous lurking in the shadows?

Christian Bale is one of the best method actors out there today, and his acting prowess and dedication to his roles shine no brighter than here, where he underwent an excruciating weight lost regime to showcase his skeletal state.  He went from 173 to 110, a stunning 63-pound weight loss difference, which still holds the record for weight loss for any actor in a role.  It's almost terrifying to see him so literal bare-boned, and wonder how a man like that could even function let alone survive.  Yet his outward appearance is only the beginning, as the inner turmoil he suffers is far more dangerous than his physical health, and it's this that threatens his sanity.  To this end, Bale again delivers a tour-de-force performance, where we don't really know what's happening - and neither does Trevor.  Memories suppressed begin leaking to the surface in dark ways, like a puzzle you're trying to piece together when the pieces are literally scattered all over your house.

The film grips you from the start, and doesn't let up on its mystery.  Who is Ivan?  No one at work seems to know who he is, and his bosses claim he never worked there, yet Trevor has seen him at work.  What is the importance of 1:30, as it keeps coming up over and over?  Who left him the hangman Post-It note, and what is its ultimate solution?  Enveloping this unfolding mystery is the excellent direction of Brad Anderson, the excellent writing of Scott Kosar, and especially the cinematography work of Xavi Gimenez and Charlie Jiminez, who saturate the screen with depressing hues of blues and grays, not offering a moment of happiness for Trevor nor the audience, completely surrounding us with his mental battle.

"The Machinist" tackles serious issues including dealing with past mistakes and the unyielding search for redemption.  Trevor tackles his past mistakes by pushing them aside, which leads to his chronic insomnia, isolation, and inability to perform the most simplest of tasks due to his weakened state (even Bale himself said it was difficult to even run due to his extreme weight loss).  Yet through his past trauma, he seeks redemption and salvation through it all, most notably in several scenes where there's literal two different roads offered, much like the proverbial roads mentioned in Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken."  You can sense Trevor wants to find salvation, but time and again he ends up taking the wrong road, even when he's trying to do good - such as caring for the battered prostitute or serving as a surrogate father figure for the waitress's son.  When the film comes to its dramatic conclusion, we finally understand the struggle Trevor has been facing, and hope he finally finds salvation - much like all of us who are haunted by our past mistakes and often keep traveling down the darker path.

Led by a transformative performance by Christian Bale, "The Machinist" is a surreal psychological thriller centering on an insomniac trying to piece together his shattered life, serving as a more dramatic sense of the realities we all face - trying to find salvation in the midst of our mistakes.

The Score: A+