Dark, Twisty "Machinist" a Eulogy of Pain

Trevor Reznick (Christian Bale) can’t sleep. This isn’t just insomnia, it’s dementia, the industrial worker having not even come close to thirty winks for over a year, reducing the once physically impressive male to a fraction of his former self. Gaunt, withdrawn, smoking cigarettes like a chimney Reznick is a mess, and with ribs protruding like an Ethiopian victim of hunger it isn’t like anyone isn’t taking a note.

His only solace comes in the arms of girlfriend and lady of the night Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a woman desperately subtle in her ploys to get Trevor to deal with whatever is ailing and reducing him to a shell. But Reznick’s longings to acquiesce to these demands take a back seat when a mysterious co-worker named Ivan (John Sharian) appears to make his life a paradoxical mystery. It seems he’s the only one can see the bald-headed ruffian, and when an workplace accident causes the near-death of a former friend (Michael Ironside) Trevor is sure Ivan and his corporate masters must be responsible. But are they, or is this just a half-baked conspiracy theory cooked up in Reznick’s increasingly fatigue-riddled mind? Like Mulder would often tell Scully, the truth is out there, but the more the skeletal blue collar employee learns the less he finds he really wants to know.

“The Machinist,” the latest from “Happy Accidents” and “Next Stop Wonderland” director Brad Anderson, is one seriously f**ked up movie. Like “The Twilight Zone” on acid, nothing here is what it seems and the more characters push towards the truth the more confusing and cryptic it all becomes. Twisting backwards and forward through time and with apparently minor characters slowly revealing themselves to be major players, this is the twistiest twister since David Lynch decided to take a cruise down “Mulholland Drive.” And while I’m not entirely sure I liked it, “The Machinist” certainly held my attention, getting me as greasy and grimy as the main character as he trawls the gutters looking for all the elusive answers. It is a eulogy of pain and suffering, and a movie unlike anything else I’m likely to see this year.

Expertly directed, Anderson and writer Scott Kosar throw you off right from the get-go with images of a bruised and battered Reznick pattering around his apartment like a puppy looking for a missing limb. They startle the audience, plunging us headlong into a sea of disrepair and psychological melancholy that stings like a sucker punch to the gut. And while I could tell right away this was going to be one of those fever-pitched dreamscapes where nothing is what it seems, lord knows if they still didn’t manage to twist me in knots so thoroughly I didn’t quite know which way to turn, let alone which way was up.

In fact, the duo does such a good job of layering on the surprises it’s hard to talk about “The Machinist” without giving too much away. Murder? Mayhem? Mystery? Paranoia? Supernatural? Preternatural? Friendship? Hatred? Anger? Love? They’re all here in a one form or another, but to talk too much about any of them would ruin the surprise. But what a surprise, so honestly delivered and emotionally shattering, but delivered with an authenticity and a simple delicacy that belies the extreme surrealism of all that it takes to get there. Anderson takes us to a place so obvious and yet so foreign, so expected yet so surprising, that when the answer finally come to light I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course, the big buzz about “The Machinist” is the performance – transformation – of future Batman Bale. Anyone whose seen this beefy Brit in flicks as diverse as “American Psycho” and “Rein of Fire” know how good looking and well-built he is, but that’s not even remotely apparent here. Actors gain and lose weight all the time for a role, but few have the audacity to put their lives at risk doing so, but dropping from 185-pounds to a reported 115 had exactly that effect on Bale. The result is disgustingly mesmerizing. When Leigh traces the outlines of his lungs as they protrude from his chest you can’t help but want to look away. And yet I couldn’t, just the sight of Bale akin to observing a horrific car accident as you slowly drive by on the freeway.

But what about the performance, is it overshadowed by the actor’s physical transformation? Yes and no. One the one side, anytime someone changes their appearance so exhaustively the resulting effect is one that can’t help but call attention to itself. But like Charlize Theron in “Monster” and Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull,” Bale still manages to deliver a performance of titanic proportions, crafting an indelible character that explodes across the theater screen. This is more than just a talented guy losing some (okay, a lot) of weight, it’s a fully realized characterization full of depth and emotional complexity growing in both intensity and power as the movie progresses.

It’s one of the best you’ll ever see, but in a film so dark and enervating chances are pretty slim you are going to. This isn’t a fairy tale, not even of the Grimm variety, and no white horse is going to come galloping by to help save the day. I felt dirty walking out of the theater, as if every pore had been covered in pathos and pain and then left to rot in festering cesspool of depression and melancholia. But I’m still glad I saw “The Machinist,” happy I was able to take the trek into its darkened nether regions. Not because it’s a strong film – it is – made by gifted filmmakers and actors – they are – but because upon exiting the theater into the sunshine my petty miseries didn’t seem so great anymore. It may not be much, but it’s something, and I’ll certainly take it.