"Being John Malkovich" opens quite a metaphysical can of worms. Every aspect of this film, directed by Spike Jonze, is new, fresh and eminently creative. On all fronts, the movie is about exploration, and it explores on all fronts. Never stagnant, Charlie Kaufman's script examines and enlivens in a way no other film ever has, and for this he deserves our utmost thanks.
Just when you think things may have settled down, the film wrenches your senses again and again, until you sit through the credits, mouth agape, entertained but bewildered, asking yourself what the heck just happened -- in the film, to your own perception of reality and to everything we thought we knew about movies.
The premise: Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), a struggling puppeteer turned file clerk, discovers a portal in his office that allows an individual to spend 15 minutes inside the mind of John Malkovich and then deposits him or her on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike (few fates worse than death) ... perfectly rational, right?
But that's only part of the story. No words can encapsulate exactly what this movie is about; that's what makes it so intriguing. It's not about being John Malkovich at all, and yet, it absolutely is.
Emotion seeps from Craig's pores -- as he puts it, "consciousness is a terrible curse." He can't deny what he is; he's a puppeteer and no normal one at that. Despite his unemployment and his family's financial burden, he can't give up his passion.
But puppet shows of overwrought sensualism and despair don't lend themselves to a successful career in street performance. When Craig brings two puppets, a nun and a priest, to orgasm in front of an eight-year-old girl, her father slugs him in the face. This failure, one of many for Craig, causes him to give in and take a job as a file clerk.
Kaufman's script capitalizes on any opportunity for imagination. Craig's new company, on the seventh-and-a-half floor of an office building, can only be reached by stopping the elevator at precisely the correct moment and prying the door open with a crowbar. As if this wasn't ridiculous enough, his boss is a vibrant 105 years young and is convinced he has a speech impediment because his hearing-impaired receptionist can't understand him.
Craig immediately falls in love with a coworker, Maxine (Catherine Keener), but she wants nothing to do with a grown, married man who "plays with dolls." Still, Craig pursues Maxine in a pathetic, puppy-dog manner, providing some of the film's most clever dialogue.
But then Craig discovers a small wooden door hidden in his office. Many movie characters have traversed dark tunnels to discover secret destinations but never has anyone ended up in the mind of an acclaimed American actor.
After his 15 minutes of being John Malkovich, Craig explains his journey to Maxine, who immediately and inexplicably decides the two should go into business together. (This and other occasional hiccups in logic are the only unfilled portals in Kaufman's otherwise ingenious script.) Craig and Maxine begin offering late-night trips through the portal for $200 a pop.
After braving the Malkovich, Craig's wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz, nearly unrecognizable in a frizzy brown wig), decides she's a transsexual and that she, too, is in love with Maxine. So begins the strangest love triangle ever captured on film, as husband and wife vie for Maxine's affections, succeeding only when inside Malkovich. And all this joyous insanity only accounts for a small fraction of the story.
Anyone who sees this film never will be able to look at John Malkovich in the same way again. Not only does his character's presence control the action like no other before, but Malkovich's portrayal of himself, as odd as it may sound, is simply brilliant.
Jonze and Kaufman both make debuts in this film, but they carry out their roles like seasoned auteurs. Kaufman's story is resoundingly fresh, and Jonze himself becomes a puppeteer, manipulating Craig into confining shots that represent his state of mind.
Puppetry, according to Craig, is about "thinking differently, being inside someone else's skin." In "Being John Malkovich," Jonze and Kaufman unquestionably are engaged in the art of puppetry. Everyone, on screen and off, is a puppet and a puppeteer. Like the characters who journey inside Malkovich's mind, we travel inside the minds of the people who brought us this work.
Ultimately, the film is about obsession -- for other people, for art, for immortality. But Craig's obsessions become unattainable, as Jonze demonstrates that inhabiting another body cannot change one's own identity, even its unpleasant characteristics.
Ten years from now, film lovers will remember "Being John Malkovich" not for what it was, but for what it did. It reminds us how powerful the human capacity for creation is and how little we know about who we are. It also offers proof that man never will run out of stories to tell, and it should restore our optimism for the future of film.
Grade: A-
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