The Extreme, R-Rated Thriller That Destroyed Batman’s Body

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 hour ago

As somebody who spent years working the graveyard shift, I can tell you first-hand that a questionable sleep schedule eventually catches up with you and forces some serious lifestyle or occupational changes. My sleep problem had a simple fix, like avoiding caffeine in the afternoon and sticking to a rigid nap schedule. I still wear one of those cushy sleep masks so I can experience total darkness during those nights when 12:00 am quickly turns into 3:00 am, and I need to catch a solid REM cycle in a pinch.

Christian Bale’s Trevor Reznik in 2004’s The Machinist, on the other hand, is well past the point of saving, and there’s no way a cozy cup of Sleepytime Tea is ever bringing him back. Bale looks the part of a tormented man whose demons have consumed him from the inside out in The Machinist, famously losing 62 pounds on a crash diet of water, apples, black coffee, and sometimes whiskey. Appearance aside, his portrayal of an insomniac slowly losing his grip on reality is one of the best I’ve ever seen, and The Machinist still holds up as a perfect psychological thriller over 20 years later.

We’re Gonna Need Something Stronger Than Camomile

The Machinist wastes no time establishing its conflict through Trevor Reznik, who has barely slept in a year and toils away at the machine shop where he works. It’s immediately clear he’s not all there, his wandering mind leading to a brutal workplace accident that costs one of his coworkers an arm. In his near-constant delirium, he has frequent run-ins with a coworker named Ivan (John Sharian), who nobody else can confirm exists. This becomes a serious problem because Trevor insists Ivan distracted him, causing the accident.

Outside of work, Trevor lives in squalor and moves through life in a daze. To distract himself from his own internal machinations, he spends time with a prostitute named Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and frequents a nearby airport diner, where he exchanges pleasantries with a waitress named Maria (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), for whom he seems at least romantically interested. As Trevor gets to know Maria better, he’s introduced to her son, Nicholas (Matthew Romero), whose presence triggers disturbing visions of his past.

As Trevor’s mental state continues to decline, he grows increasingly paranoid and distracted. His constant state of mental flux eventually costs him his machinist job, sending him further into his spiral. Fully convinced that Ivan, Stevie, and Maria are conspiring against him, Trevor sets out to discover who’s pulling the strings, and who’s been leaving the Post-It note on his refrigerator with an incomplete game of hangman scratched onto it.

Worth Its Weight In Christian Bales 

By now well known for his willingness to undergo extreme physical transformations, Christian Bale goes all in with his portrayal of Trevor in The Machinist. He reportedly dropped to 120 pounds during production, then had to gain roughly 100 pounds in about six months to prepare for his portrayal of Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which kicked off in 2005.

Insane physicality aside, Bale is fully dialed in as a man who has completely lost himself to the silent grief eating away at him, his repressed memories resurfacing as his mental faculties hit a dire low point he may never recover from. The stress seen in his face in every single scene is palpable because he’s living it. I’d imagine that smelling the craft service on the production lot during principal photography helped fuel the illusion more than we’ll ever realize. 

Experiencing everything from Trevor’s fractured perspective, we catch a glimpse of a world that’s pale and tinted green, as if the decay he feels at his core is projected onto his surroundings. It’s a grim depiction of what can happen when you live in a constantly heightened, sleep deprived state, clocking every single interaction as one loaded with ulterior motives, as if everybody is trying to expose you for committing some heinous act in the past that you only vaguely recall.

The next time you find yourself tossing, turning, and worrying about how much tomorrow is going to suck if you can’t get a few unbroken hours of sleep before dawn approaches, just throw on The Machinist for a dose of perspective. You’ll be glad that the car backfiring outside your bedroom window, waking you briefly before you drift back to slumberland, is the worst of your problems after spending time with Trevor.

As of this writing, The Machinist is streaming on Paramount+.