Being John Malkovich: Review By moviegeek

Being John Malkovich is strange; and I mean that as a compliment. Unfortunately for my review, I'm left without words for this film. I can't dissect it like a normal picture because it's like nothing I've seen before. There's a story, but no plot. There are characters, but there are also real people playing themselves, as well as vague interpretations of themselves. The film is a collection of enough ideas to power several different films, yet somehow they all come together smoothly.

Craig (John Cusack) is a puppeteer who works on the street and in the cellar of his home. He is married to Lotte (Cameron Diaz, unrecognizably so), a woman who wants desperately for her husband to get a job. One day, Craig sees a job ad in the paper for someone "with quick hands". He jumps at the opportunity and travels to the low-ceilinged 7½th floor of a large building. He gets the job and begins to flirt with a clearly-uninterested female employee, Maxine (Catherine Keener).

It's not long before Craig stumbles upon a small door in the wall of his office. Curious, he crawls through the door into a long, muddy tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, he is shocked to find that he is peering out through the eyes of actor John Malkovich! Fifteen minutes in, he is thrown out into a highway ditch. Thrilled with the concept of, well, being John Malkovich, he runs back to tell Maxine of his discovery.

I'm getting carried away with the story. I could keep going, but I wouldn't be able to stop until I told you the very end. Like I said, there is no true plot to the picture. There isn't an individual plotline that the film is shaped around. The film constantly invites new patterns and new ideas to its creation. What matters, is that Malkovich himself begins to lose control to those in his head, causing personal outrage.

Director Spike Jonze really broke out with this film. He defied convention with this, his first picture--both an often-hysterical comedy and a bogglingly-weird idea. His direction in this picture is more than evident in the way it moves and grows. There is no room for an off-element. One wrong step could ruin the picture as a whole. Being John Malkovich gets crazier and crazier as it progresses, but the picture somehow stays on its indefinable, zany course for the whole runtime. (For example, there is a scene in the picture with a chimp's flashback of his capture in the jungle, with subtitled parental shrieks--as insane as it sounds, it somehow fit in, and hilariously so.)

The cast really evolves into the picture, losing their star-driven distinguishableness, and instead masking themselves into their roles. Obviously, Malkovich himself remains recognizable, but it's not in the way you'd imagine. Malkovich isn't playing himself. No, he is actually portraying a portrayal of himself. (Wow, that made no sense.) Okay, let me explain. Malkovich isn't called into this role to just be HIM. Instead, he personifies the public image that he, and every other celebrity, has attained. The picture revolves around each person's dire need NOT to be John Malkovich, but to just be someone-someone else.

That is the most interesting thought the film raises (and it raises dozens). What is so appealing about becoming someone else? Do we want the recognition or, moreso, just the freedom to be something else. Being John Malkovich is a truly, truly strange and distinguishable work because doesn't end up being about the characters in the film and their outcomes. Instead, the movie becomes about the viewer. It's a very personal film, impersonally made.

For me, it was hard to take off my "moviegeek hat" and just look at the film as it applies to me. Maybe you would have the same struggle in your own way. I do believe we all have a natural desire, not necessarily to become someone else, but to stop being ourselves. Being John Malkovich dissects the idea of "the grass is always greener on the other side". By the end, it's not so much how green your grass is, but how hungry you are for more.

So what did I make of this film? What star rating does it deserve? You know what, for the first time ever, I truly think it doesn't matter. This could be a 5-star picture, or a no-star picture. It really makes no difference. The film doesn't work and breathe on the standards of critique, but instead on the levels of personal analysis. If you simply look for the movie-making technique, you're going to be pretty darn satisfied. This is a well-constructed, perfectly executed picture. But if you look beyond the "story", however, and take time to let the film work back towards you, you may find that movie forms a continuing cycle of thought-from those jumping off the screen to you, to those of your own that you throw back at it.