The man who brought us Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, The Fountain, and the forthcoming Black Swan isn’t known for his sly humor. However, his next project sees him moving out of his wheelhouse a bit in order to deliver an adaptation of Machine Man ‐ the serial and soon-to-be novel by satirist Max Barry.
Aronofksy is an interesting choice for director because he has almost exclusively done thrillers and dramas, but Barry’s writing (which I was introduced to through “Jennifer Government” and the addictive, interactive game the book used as an early form of online marketing) is known for calm sarcasm and a near-constant smirk when telling tales of modernism and our new role in the corporate structure. In Machine Man, an engineer replaces his weak, fleshy limbs with strong metal ones, but it turns out other people might want to use that sort of thing for evil.
Being called an “amped up pop thriller,” the novel still has that trademarked tongue in cheek attitude of Barry’s writing (or, at least, the amount of it that’s already currently online does), and it’s always exciting to see a director try something new ‐ especially before delving back into the world of gritty drama and Wolverine. [THR]
