THE MACHINIST is the story of TREVOR REZNIK, a lathe-operator who is dying of insomnia. In a machine shop, occupational hazards are bad enough under normal circumstances; yet for Trevor the risks are compounded by fatigue. Trevor has lost the ability to sleep. This is no ordinary insomnia...
We watched this movie today, and really enjoyed it. It's a very unusual film, in that unlike most movies that are filmed out of chronological sequence, it's so smoothly done that you don't realize that it's out of sequence until late in the movie. This is a good thing; it adds greatly to the punch at the end when you find out what it is that's really keeping Trevor awake at night.
The movie is very hallucinatory; the director did a fantastic job at making things look washed out and blurry, the way they do when you have insomnia. (I know about this. It was VERY accurate.) However, the single thing that made the movie was the star: Christian Bale.
The script for "The Machinist" has been kicked around Hollywood for about ten years, largely because they couldn't find a lead actor willing to go to the extremes required for the role. Then they got a copy of the script to Christian Bale, who said I imagine something along the lines of, "Sure, I don't have anything better to do, I'll gladly lose 70 pounds to be in your movie!"
No kidding.
He looks like a walking skeleton. Twice in the movie, people tell him "If you were any thinner, you wouldn't exist." It's accurate; watching his emaciated body is actually painful. He looks like he just came out of some horrifying prison camp.
Added to the fact that Christian Bale is an amazingly talented actor anyway, it makes the movie as powerful as a punch in the teeth. This one is definitely a buy; it's purely amazing filmmaking.
