The Machinist is a 2004 English-language Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Brad
Anderson and written by Scott Kosar.
The film stars Christian Bale with Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Sharian, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón,
and Michael Ironside.
Plot Trevor Reznik is a machinist whose insomnia
has led to him becoming emaciated.
His appearance and behavior keeps his coworkers away, and they eventually turn against him
when he is involved in an accident that causes his coworker Miller to lose his left arm.
Trevor, who was distracted by an unfamiliar coworker named Ivan, is blamed for the accident.
No one at the factory knows of Ivan and there are no records of him.
Trevor seems to find peace only with Stevie, a prostitute with genuine affection for him,
and with Maria, a waitress at an airport diner he frequents.
He is haunted by brief flashes of recurring imagery, and things such as his car cigarette
lighter take on a menacing air.
A mysterious series of post-it notes appear on his refrigerator, depicting a game of hangman.
These vaguely threatening incidents send him further into paranoia, but he nonetheless
attempts to establish a relationship with Maria.
Meeting her at an amusement park, Trevor goes with her son Nicholas on a funhouse ride called
"Route 666", whose flashing lights cause Nicholas to suffer an epileptic seizure.
No longer able to think clearly, Trevor suspects that the bizarre events are a concerted effort
to drive him insane.
These ideas are fed to him in small random clues.
One of them is a picture of Ivan fishing with Trevor's coworker Reynolds, which he discovers
in Ivan's wallet when it's left behind in a pub.
Another near-accident at work causes Trevor to lash out in rage at his coworkers; as a
result, he is immediately fired.
Increasingly distracted and alienated, Trevor forgets to pay his utility bills and his electricity
is disconnected.
A dark, viscous liquid begins trickling out of the freezer, coating the fridge door with
streaks of what appears to be blood.
After several attempts to confront Ivan, Trevor tries to trace his license plate.
He follows Ivan's car to read its license plate, but his gasoline runs out.
When DMV clerk insists that personal information cannot be released unless a crime has been
committed, Trevor throws himself in front of a car in order to accuse Ivan of committing
a hit and run.
He files a police report with Ivan's plate number on it, only to be baffled when he is
told that the car in question is his own; he had reported the vehicle destroyed in a
wreck one year ago.
He runs from the policemen and goes to Stevie, who clothes and washes him, but he finds the
photo of Ivan and Reynolds framed in her home and accuses her of conspiring against him.
Confused, Stevie says the picture is of Reynolds and Trevor, but he refuses to look at it and
is thrown out after a verbal conflict.
He goes to the airport diner, but is told by an unfamiliar waitress that they've never
had an employee named Maria.
The waitress has served Trevor every day for a year, without him saying much.
In the film's climax, Trevor sees Ivan take Nicholas into Trevor's apartment and, fearing
the worst, sneaks inside.
Nicholas is nowhere to be seen and doesn't respond to Trevor's calls.
He confronts Ivan in the bathroom and kills him after a struggle.
He pulls back the shower curtain, only to find the bathtub empty.
He goes to the refrigerator and opens it to find rotting fish and other spoiled food tumble
out.
His mind then flashes back to the fishing photo, which actually shows a healthy Trevor
with Reynolds, just as Stevie claimed.
Ivan being in the photo was part of Trevor's delusion.
The scene returns to one that occurred during the opening credits, in which he tries to
dispose of someone's corpse - presumably Ivan's - by rolling it in a rug and casting it into
the ocean.
When the rug unravels, there is nothing inside.
Ivan, alive as ever, appears holding a flashlight and laughs.
The scene then cuts to Trevor staring into mirror at home, repeating the words "I know
who you are".
It is revealed that one year ago, Trevor ran over and killed a boy identical to Nicholas
after taking his eyes off the road to use the car's cigarette lighter, which was witnessed
by the boy's mother, identical to Maria.
He decided to drive away, and the resulting guilt became the deep-seated cause of his
insomnia.
He fills the missing letters of the hangman note to spell "killer".
He briefly considers going to the airport and escaping, but instead drives to police
headquarters, signifying his "road to salvation", a reoccurring theme in the film.
He is accompanied by a silent but encouraging Ivan, who bids him an approving farewell outside
the station.
At the police station's front desk, he confesses to the hit and run.
Two police officers escort Trevor to a cell, where he states his intention to sleep and
does so for the first time in a year.
Cast
Production
Despite its setting in a city in California, the film was shot in its entirety in and near
Barcelona, Spain.
It was produced by the Fantastic Factory label of Filmax and Castelao Productions.
Christian Bale starved himself for over four months prior to filming, as his character
needed to look drastically thin.
Allegedly, his eating consisted of one cup of black unsweetened coffee and an apple or
can of tuna each day.
According to the DVD commentary, he lost 62 pounds, reducing his body mass to 120 pounds.
Bale wanted to go down to 99 pounds, but the filmmakers would not let him due to health
concerns.
He later regained the mass, plus an additional 60 pounds through weightlifting and proper
eating, in preparation for his role in Batman Begins.
Brad Anderson hurt his back during filming and directed much of the film while lying
on a gurney.
Influences The name Trevor Reznik is derived from Trent
Reznor, the founder and primary creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch
Nails, and the original script had NIN lyrics on the first page.
Other NIN tributes include the reversed N on the poster and early press articles describing
Reznik as experiencing a downward spiral.
However, the strongest literary influence is the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
In the DVD commentary, writer Scott Kosar states that he was influenced by Dostoyevsky's
The Double.
The character Reznik is shown reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot early in the film.
When Reznik is riding the "Route 666" attraction, one of the faux marquees reads Crime and Punishment.
In Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, the character who is visited by a devil is named
Ivan.
In the 1969 film, Ivan and his devil are played by the same actor.
Reception The Machinist was well received by critics.
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 77% of 141 critics' reviews were
positive; the consensus states: "Brad Anderson's dark psychological thriller about a sleepless
factory worker is elevated by Christian Bale's astonishingly committed performance."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times awarded the film three stars out of four, stating
"The director Brad Anderson, working from a screenplay by Scott Kosar, wants to convey
a state of mind, and he and Bale do that with disturbing effectiveness."
References
External links The Machinist at the Internet Movie Database
The Machinist at Box Office Mojo The Machinist at Rotten Tomatoes
The Machinist at Metacritic