Alternate Best Actor 2004: Christian Bale in The Machinist

Christian Bale did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Trevor Reznik in The Machinist.  

The Machinist follows a paranoid factory worker who is both emaciated and an insomniac. 

Long before watching the film I was well aware of it for the oft noted weight loss of Christian Bale in the film, which became all the more noted because of how much weight he subsequently gained to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins. Which is a striking visual to see such a gaunt man, though to speculate whether it is necessary or not, I won’t get too much into the weeds, as with so many claims that it was essential, I also have seen the version where the actor go to such an extreme and see if the film is any less for it. Regardless it’s the starting point where we see Bale’s Trevor as a man seemingly wrecked by life by looking like a living scarecrow, something he accentuates beyond the dietary regiment, within his own performance. Perhaps by extension of his own starvation, nonetheless Bale’s hunched posture, darting eyes as though he’s looking for a predator, and innately anxiety ridden discomfort in every movement naturally establish Trevor as a man on an edge and living in a very intense state. A state that seems to place Trevor outside the confines of the world he lives in, and away from even from the viewer. We come into the film not feeling Trevor’s world, but rather watching his strange state of displacement. 

Bale’s performance is effective in creating essentially what would often be a strange side character in many other films. As he seems just bent and off-putting in his manner. We witness Trevor seemingly dispose of a body in the opening of the film, and from there on we know Trevor's problems are beyond just his lack of sustenance. Bale’s performance is one of isolation for a good portion of the film. We see him at work in a machine laden factory where we see him as the outsider, where Bale’s physical manner towards everyone else gives a sense of danger and paranoia, both exuding from himself and as a man reacting in the same way to others. There’s no comfort within it, just a sense of off-putting disconnect. The attempts of comfort are found within his relationship with two women, the first a prostitute Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), where Bale’s performance in reaction to her seeming attempts at comfort, show still a just slightly softened paranoia. We still see a lack of trust, though just a subtle hint of thinking about maybe allowing comfort, but never quite there. A trick idea to pull off which Bale creates with ease. The second non-sexual relationship is with a local waitress he frequently sees Maria. Where there’s strangely no question about her wish to seemingly comfort him. Bale’s reaction to her is with the closest we see to warmth from him towards her but with this underlying quality of surprise if not disbelief for every bit of kindness she shows. Going so far as to allow him to take her son on a dark ride, where he has an epileptic seizure, something she still reacts to soothe Trevor’s concerns, despite the situation. Bale conveys that almost comfort, but with a different kind of suspicion as she seems almost too forgiving towards him. 

Meanwhile things get stranger at work as one of his co-workers loses a hand in the machines while Trevor is distracted by an odd seeming stranger called Ivan. Weirder things keep happening after this point, as reality begins to warp, such as when Trevor finds himself nearly losing his own hand and he ends up getting hit…by his own car. Bale’s performance internalizes the paranoia of these situations, creating the building intensity where you see the man struggling to make sense of it, but you also see the emotional strain as the events seem to be peeling at something more within the man. Bale makes a deliberate choice as we switch from that more detached point to bringing us into Trevor’s world as he begins to lash out against the building dread. Including against Stevie who he believes was married to Ivan, and Bale’s moment is great work from him as he goes from the exhaustive state of the man to an even more severe state as he unleashes his painful emotions as well. Bale purged even more life as these harrowing gasps for any kind of air as he tries to make sense as the world becomes increasingly stranger as even the source of comfort in Maria seems to have been just a figment of his imagination. 

Leading to spoilers, as Trevor eventually kills the pestering Ivan only for the real man to reappear, making it clear he is a representation in his mind of his guilt. His guilt for what, well little bits of info throughout reveal that Trevor is existing in a constant state of emotional turmoil from having committed a hit and run on the real Maria’s son. This is a revelation that becomes a natural realization because of Bale’s performance. The man rotted away, isolating himself, only expressing himself largely in intense defense and creating just the sense of an emotional exhaustion far beyond even his physical exhaustion. Bale carries the twist as we see everything he’s done as logical albeit the logic of a broken psyche. He’s captivating in going through the final moments of the film in revealing just suddenly the full openness in his emotions, now letting us in, and is moving in suddenly revealing the full more tender humanity of the guilt beneath all the paranoia. Although it seems like another “apology” from me for a Bale performance, as while I have no criticisms of this performance, which I found largely compelling and certainly a proper realization of the extremely idiosyncratic character arc, I will admit it didn’t quite become beyond just very good for me.