Berlin: Another Review Of THE MACHINIST!!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Gotta see it. Gotta see it. Gotta see it.
Hey Harry,
My Wife and I are currently in Berlin enjoying the Berlinale, and I thought I'd give you a quick look at Brad Anderson's The MACHINIST starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Bale plays Trevor Reznik, an industrial worker who hasn't slept in a year, and is so thin that 'If he were any thinner he wouldn't even exist' as the supporting cast likes to point out. Trevor has his eccentricities- He regularly sees a local hooker (Jennifer Jason Leigh), loves to leave himself post-it notes, and goes to the same airport cafe every night for Coffey, pie, and conversation with his favorite waitress (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon). Besides the aforementioned things everything is fairly normal until Trevor meets Ivan (John Sharian), a new worker at the plant. Problem is nobody else at the plant has heard of Ivan, nor has an Ivan ever worked there. This sets off a chain of events that makes you wonder if everything is as it seems, and start questioning Trevor's sanity. That's as far as I'll go with the synopsis, I don't want to dip my toesies in the spoiler water.
Overall I really dug this film (as did the wife). You've seen this type of movie plenty of times before, but rarely one that works so well. The storytellers (Director Brad Anderson, and Writer Scott Kosar) definitely handled with care, and as a result created a very good film. The photography was good, washed out but never depressing, and a hint of sepia here and there. One of the things I appreciated the most was regardless of all the oddities that occur throughout the movie the filmmakers always ground it with reality. So often movies like this throw weird stuff at you, but the characters don't react to it. They just drift along without challenging anything, which is convenient for the filmmakers because they can just keep piling up weird crap. Not so with The Machinist, Trevor is active, he questions what's going on around him, and he tries to get to the bottom of it.
Christian Bale is just plain amazing in this film. You will be shocked when you see him, because he lost so much weight for this role it has to be unhealthy. When you first see him with his shirt off he looks almost skeletal, you feel that if you were to breath on him wrong he would snap like a twig. His thinness and eccentricities might be off-putting at first, but Bale will win you over quickly. He is absolutely turning in to one of the great actors out there. He can pull off Batman/Bruce Wayne, let's just pray the filmmakers actually understand the character. Jennifer Jason Leigh is good as the hooker Stevie (although her role is a tad thankless), and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon is equally good as the waitress Marie. John Sharian as Ivan is great, he's got a bulkier Morpheus look goin' on, and his care free laughter always makes you think he knows something everyone else doesn't. I should also mention Michael Ironside who does a great job as fellow plant worker Miller.
There's just one other thing about this movie I have to mention- the music. Bloody fantastic! It's a combination of Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho, and the stuff Marius Constant and others did on The Twilight Zone. Some of the cues in this film will make you feel downright nostalgic, and it's the music that really helps set this film apart from others of the same ilk. If this score ever gets a soundtrack release I will own it in a heartbeat. The only real downfall of this film is the plot is a tad unoriginal, but as I said before all is forgiven because it's crafted so well. I highly recommend it (for Bale and the music alone), and I hope to see it playing wide in the future.
I hope the review was helpful, I'll chime in on the weekend with more from the Berlinale. Including my reviews of Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, and Takashi Miike's One Missed Call.
-Basara
Gotta see it. Gotta see it. Gotta see it.
"Moriarty" out.
