# Being John Malkovich (1999)

### reviewed by
Jonathan F Richards

    HEAD TRIP

    BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
    Directed by Spike Jonze
    Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman
    With John Malkovich, John Cusack
    De Vargas     R    112 min.

Most of "Being John Malkovich" is such twisted, through-the-looking-glass originality that you should have plenty of tolerance to cushion a creative fall-away in the film's declining scenes. The premise itself is irresistible: Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is an out-of-work puppeteer who takes a job at a filing company located on the 7 1/2th floor of an office building, where he and fellow employees must stoop as they negotiate the 5-foot-high corridors and offices. There he discovers a door hidden behind some filing cabinets, and this door leads into the head of actor John Malkovich, where he can remain for 15 minutes before being spit out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Catherine Keener ("Living In Oblivion") is Maxine, the sexy and contemptuous co-worker after whom Craig lusts, and with whom he sets up a business to exploit this phenomenon. Cameron Diaz, transformed into a mousy brunette, is his pet-obsessed wife, who also lusts after Maxine after she sees her through Malkovich's eyes from inside his head. Orson Bean is the owner of the filing company, a well-spoken man who is convinced by his loopy receptionist (Mary Kay Place) that he has an impenetrable speech impediment. And Malkovich is Malkovich, and even he finds his way into the secret portal and into his own head, resulting in a hall-of-mirrors scene of mind-blowing self-reference.

Music video vet Spike Jonze directs his first feature brilliantly from Charlie Kaufman's hilarious screenplay. The acting suits the warped world perfectly; Cusack's unkempt obsessive puppeteer, Keener's cold tease of a vamp (her legs are never together in the movie), Diaz's neurotic, sexually-ambivalent frump, and Bean's cheerfully eccentric employer are all inspired creations. And John Malkovich's blandly compliant version of himself may be the most weirdly original characterization of the bunch.

The less you know about the plot going in the more fun you'll have. Inspiration flags a bit at the end, but it's nothing serious. The movie raises a dizzying array of questions about identity, gender, morality, and mortality; it makes you think while it makes you laugh.

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