The Machinist

I'm really getting sick of the whole,"this/these character(s) never existed outside the protagonists mind" device. At its best, recent, example Fight Club it was "Oh, weird". . .that's the height of this device's effect. Since then it's been salvaged from the refuse time and shitty time again. Now the"Oh, weird" response has been conditioned to "For the love of Christ. Not this shit!!" followed by a punch to an accompanying girlfriend. That's the way I felt when I watched Secret Window and that's how I felt with The Machinist. It seems that more writers are growing tired of creating a decent antagonist or villain. Maybe they're just lazy or mildly retarded. This gimmick is an easy way out for a writer. Any holes in the story can just be explained via a flashback that was never shown in the film or a single statement, "I, sometimes, black out."  The use of this device really is a dire fault in this film. It shows a weak-ass script and a lazy-ass writer. Some of you may not know this, but the script to a film is pretty important. It tends to contain all that shit like theme, story, point, meaning, etc,. Another palpable hit to this film is it's style. The story is very gritty and very coarse. This might sound ridiculous but it's tough to convey this image of grime and decay when everything is so bright and neat. Everything is polished like gun steel and lit like a Chipotle Restaurant/Eatery. The Machinist should have been filmed in 16mm B&W with a virtually unknown cast. It's polished-masturbatory look comes across as a cinematic equivalent of the House of Blues, a place that tries to look like a Southern BackWoods Dive, but instead screams of charts and planograms detailing where every bottle-cap should be glued to the ceiling. Similarly, if Eraserhead had been filmed in color, nobody would ever know who David Lynch was. It was the grain of the film and the texture that could only have been revealed in black and white that made that film. Granted, if any filmmaker is able to obtain a budget and can afford to make a film for 3 million as opposed to 800,000 grand, the choice would be obvious.  It just destroyed the image the film was trying to present for me. To it's credit, it does feature a good cast. Christian Bale as Audrey Hepburn is impressive. His absurd dedication to the role and personal drive to kill himself made the film bearable. Although, after awhile you get acclimated to how skinny he is and the shock value is gone. Or you might be like my friend Lindsey who digs the holocaust survivor look (The more emaciated; the more fornicated!). As for Jennifer Jason-Leigh, I'll break it down into a story. I took an Introduction to Fiction class. One of the most painful books I've ever had to read was in this class, Bastard out of Carolina. It was even more painful than that copy of Farenheit 451 that was actually heated up to 450 degrees. I commented to the Professor that it was a smart move picking a book that had been made into a movie, but since the movie starred Jennifer Jason-Leigh nobody would ever fucking watch it. I stand by that notion of Jennifer Jason-Leigh. Everyone else? Sure, they were fine.  In the end, I would suggest watching it, but you'd never have to watch it more than once. Or even once all the way through. By the way, spoiler warning.