BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
by creepie

Being John Malkovich is ultra weird. It starts off a little on the pretentious side, but looking back through the lens of the film's startling finale, the pretensions of the first act may in fact be the necessary lull before the thing gets cooking. At the turn of the millennium, the movie biz has found itself in the unenviable position of being, literally, just another way of selling widgets. Tim Burton recently told Howard Stern that to make a big-screen Superman, he had to design the Happy Meal tie-in toys before he could even begin to design what his film's hero would look like. Such is the reality of 1999. Maybe 2000 will be different; maybe it won't. But if Spike Jonze keeps making movies, maybe it might.

You can't sell anything from this ultra strange, incredibly funny, sometimes sad and chilling flick. USA Films, which I hope stays in business, made little John Malkovich masks as a promo item. Even this funny and inventive tie-in doesn't quite bespeak this jarring story this flick tells. It's a movie about what we want, what we'd like to be, who we'd like to be, and how we don't really give a shit what happens to other people as long as we Get What We Want. In fact, if you look at the movie business, the revenue streams are the story. This movie is an anti-movie.

It tells the story of a puppeteer named Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) who writes, directs and presents over-dramatic navel-gazing puppet shows about how life has squelched him and, later, fantasizes through his puppets about what he can't have in real life. His girlfriend Lotte (Cameron Diaz) takes care of animals. Craig gets a job at an off-kilter company on the 7 1/2 floor of a building where there's not much headroom. At orientation he meets and begins to fantasize about Maxine, who is quite frank about her lack of interest in him. One day while filing he discovers a tiny door behind a filing cabinet. This door leads to a weird, dirty little tunnel which he, being curious, crawls into. Once the floor of this tunnel becomes squishy, the door slams and he is propelled into the mind of John Malkovich. All the action before this point, while humorous and sort of intriguing, immediately goes away. This is the real start of the story and the places it takes you are far stranger.

Without giving away the surprises of this totally unique, disturbing, exhilarating flick, people inside John Malkovich discover things about themselves - mostly that they would rather be Malkovich. But Craig, who is a puppeteer, discovers much more. He can control Malkovich instead of just occupying him. He can become Malkovich. Where does this leave Malkovich, you ask? Good question. In this story, way leads onto way. Each question asked by the action leads to another question and this film, while completely strange, is also somehow more real than all the Story of Uses and Anywhere But Heres put together. In Malkovich, our best self is pitted against our worst. And it's survival of the fittest in there.

John Malkovich, the actor in the world who stars as himself in this film, is indescribably great. He's not really playing himself, though. He's first playing a Malkovich that anyone who knows who Malkovich is would expect Malkovich to be. Then he's playing a host of other people as Malkovich, once Craig and Maxine start renting out 15 minute interludes inside of him. Then he's Craig inside Malkovich. And let me tell you, Malkovich does a better John Cusack as Craig than Cusack does. It's hard to describe, but it's amazing to watch. If anyone hands out awards for most fearless performance, to hell with the starlet that wears no makeup and Cries Real Tears - give the damn award to Malkovich if for no other reason than Jonze's take on Malkovich's unconscious mind.

Cameron Diaz, as always, brings sweetness and naturalness to the film as Lotte. Catherine Keener is great as the mercenary Maxine. Orson Bean as Dr. Lester, the seemingly nice man with a secret connection to Malkovich, is incredibly effective and kind of chilling. Mary Kay Place is funny. And there's a celebrity cameo that made me burst out laughing and gave me a smile-burn long after I left the theater.

I was surprised at how many people were in the theater with me and how responsive they were to such a strange flick. As weird as this story is, it's also immediately familiar from one's own secret mind - the one we don't show to people - the one that would squelch a soul we perceive as greater than ours if it meant that we could be that person if only for a few minutes.

Spike Jonze became famous for his singular music videos for acts like the Beastie Boys, Weezer and Bjork that are completely in a league of their own on that other widget-selling proving ground, MTV. He also recently starred in the film Three Kings. Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay. The tech credits are all first rate, particularly the photography, which is muddy when it needs to be and vibrantly alive at other times.

The ending left me kind of stunned. It was one of those moments - almost up there with the end of Blue Velvet - that knock your view of the world slightly off track, and the things that once gave you comfort suddenly stand out as most dangerous.