Day 269 of the challenge! How come no one ever told me The Machinist was basically Hitchcock meets The Twilight Zone?
Seriously, that’s the best way I can find to describe this gem of a movie, a movie I should have watched years ago I should add! People always talk about how insanely thin Chris Bale got for his role (the dude’s insane, but committed), but no one’s ever brought up the Hitchcock like sense of dominating paranoia, the shrill and energetic Bernard Herrmann-esque score, or the weird and ominous plot straight out of a classic Twilight Zone episode. All just as impressive as Bale’s transformation if you ask me. Anyway…
Underneath all the awesome aforementioned aesthetics and inspirations, The Machinist surprised me with how heavy it ended up being thematically. The film is about guilt and it’s potential to devour someone if they don’t face it, and The Machinist executes it with a beautiful sense of style. You can guess pretty early on where things are going story wise, but that doesn’t stop the message and film from being any less effective.