In the opening scene Trevor rolls up a carpet with much difficulty while a pair of feet stick out the end of the carpet.  After he has rolled up the carpet Trevor walks up to the window where a close up of him confirms that he has gone through some physical abuse.  He drives off to some remote location on the seaside with the carpet in the back of his pickup truck.  There he prepares himself to throw the carpet into the sea when a stranger who asks him, “Who are you”, interrupts him.  Later at home Trevor washes his hands in bleach while the camera angle from the bedroom reveals a flashlight on the bed. It looks like the flashlight that the stranger might have used a scene earlier.

Trevor is a machinist at a small factory.  It is a dirty, greasy, and dangerous job, but his foreman does not seem to care when he only continues to urge them to work harder and faster.  The camaraderie is close between the workers who frequently play poker together, or tell each other jokes to liven up the atmosphere.  However, Trevor always avoids his coworkers even when they ask him to join them for poker, as he always has other plans.  His plans consist of three things while struggling with his yearlong insomnia.  Trevor frequently visits the call girl Stevie, which was already mentioned, and he spends his late nights at an airport cafeteria to drink coffee and talk to the waitress that works the graveyard shift, but he always leaves at 1:30 AM.  The rest of the time he spends at home where he reads and watches TV, as he endures the power of his insomnia.  One of the novels that he read is Fyodor Dostoevski's The Idiot.

Eventually things begin to catch up with Trevor. It all starts when he meets Ivan (John Sharian) during one of his breaks after a troublesome meeting with his boss.  On a later occasion, Ivan distracts him when he is supposed to help one of his coworkers who ends up in a severe accident.  Consequently, the plot begin to thicken, as Trevor's coworkers express their contempt for him, Ivan continues to put him in danger, and someone leaves a secret code in form of hangman on his refrigerator.  Amidst the hazy consciousness Trevor begin to feel the affects of his sleep deprivation while he also feels that someone is on his tail.  The question is who and why is someone following him, as his life begins to get more and more muddled by continuing complex problems.

The Machinist presents an intriguing tale where the main character finds himself in a paranoid world and the twilights of insomnia grab his awareness.  The director Brad Anderson provides a stunning effort framing several of the scenes in wonderful compositions enhanced with the cinematography by Xavi Giménez and Charlie Jiminez.  These three filmmakers succeed in a brilliant way to capture the perception of Trevor, as he finds himself in a complicated situation.  Another captivating facet of the film emerges through the mise-en-scene, which offers much detail to what takes place in the story.  Lastly, the performance by Christian Bale is tremendous who went through a rough diet to perform the part, as he lost some 60 pounds.  Altogether, the Machinist will keep the audience in thoughts while the ominous world of Trevor comes into sight, which will leave them thinking for some time after the film.

DIRECTED BY

COUNTRY

Spain

Filmography links and data courtesy of