The Machinist, take 2

Alright, a warning first. If you haven't seen The Machinist, don't read this post. Unless you don't plan on watching it. In which case you can still avoid this post. I feel like actually talking about the movie some and I can't really do that without spoiling it. So consider yourselves warned.

The Machinist is quite a little piece of celluloid. First off, Christian Bale - weight loss, 63 lbs, walking skeleton stick of a man, yadda yadda yadda. Now that that's out of the way. What we have here is basically a redemption tale. A homily on guilt. The striking figure that is Trevor Reznik is a warning on the powerful force that is human nature and what can happen to us if we let it. Only instead of a metaphysical discourse on how guilt can eat us alive, we watch it consume poor Trevor. Literally. I mean look at him. Eeesh.

Actually the film discusses both sides of that coin. The majority of the movie looks at some of the interior aspects of what guilt can do, but we don't realize it at the time. Brad Anderson directs a picture that for the most part is a suspense film and saves the moral for the final reveal at the end.

The problem is, the movie is pretty dense. I still can't make heads or tails of the timeline. I think I've managed to figure out who Ivan is (Trevor's repressed conscience that finally makes itself heard), but I'm still unsure of what happened when and with whom. Mostly this revolves around Stevie. It's apparent at the end that Stevie knows what Trevor used to look like. And I suspect that Trevor is in reality the psycho ex-boyfriend that she refers to. But if that's the case, how do we view the relationship that they have over the course of the movie. It's obviously the template for the relationship he builds in his mind with the boy's mother at the airport diner, but beyond that I'm a little stuck. And I don't really know what to make of the events in the machine shop. Further grist for the guilt mill? (Pun only slighty intended. ^_^)

At any rate, The Machinist is certainly a powerful film and one my wife and I quite enjoyed. It's up there in the ranks of The Fisher King and se7en for redemption/cautionary tales for me. I suspect multiple viewings would help make further sense, but I'll have to wait a bit before I can sit through it again. Mostly because I took it back to the video store already for the dollar credit... Stupid video store.