rated on a 4-star scale screening venue : cornerhouse ( manchester ) released in the uk by uip on march 17 , 2000 ; certificate 15 ; 112 minutes ; country of origin usa ; aspect ratio 1 . 85 : 1 directed by spike jonze ; produced by steve golin , vincent landay , sandy stern , michael stipe . written by charlie kaufman . photographed by lance acord ; edited by eric zumbrunnen . when i first heard the premise of " being john malkovich " , it was hard to accept the reality that one day such a film would be made , and i would be able to sit and watch it . now i've seen it twice -- once last november , at the stella screen film festival , and again this week , at the dawn of its general release . but i still haven't quite got my head round it . if i'm not giving it four stars , perhaps one of the reasons is that i need to see it a few more times before its full force really sinks in . the movie is like a walk through a long maze of rooms , where each new door provides a hilariously bizarre payoff to the last . consider these opening scenes . we meet craig schwarz ( john cusack ) , a scruffy street puppeteer who doesn't make much money because his shows are too blasphemous and carnal . his wife lotte ( cameron diaz ) encourages him to get an office job until marionette work starts to pay ; she's raising a chimp , and needs some serious cash . craig becomes employed as a file clerk on floor seven-and-a-half of a new york city skyscraper . ( the ceilings are very low . ) the boss ( orson bean ) is a 105-year old pervert obsessed with carrot juice , and his secretary ( mary kay place ) is a paranoid deaf flirt . even more odd is a hole in the wall of craig's office , which turns out to be a portal into the mind of world-renowned actor john malkovich . it can suck people into the man's brain for fifteen minutes and then spit them out onto a ditch on the side of the new jersey turnpike . craig's co-worker maxine ( catherine keener ) is determined to exploit the discovery . she takes out a classified ad and sells tickets . the next stages of the plot involve the other ways she uses the situation , and malkovich's discovery of what's going on . i don't want to reveal too much ; this is just the set-up , and the movie keeps unfolding with eccentric developments and devices , which are so delightful because they seem to emerge out of a perfectly logical progression . every event leads to the next quite reasonably , and the screenwriter , charlie kaufman , gives each one a different flavour . in one scene near the beginning of the movie , for example , we're laughing at the outrageousness of craig's puppet show . after that enterprise fails , and he gets his job on floor seven-and-a-half , the awkward visuals inspire giggles . later there will be clever celebrity satire , when craig figures out how to control malkovich's body and turns him into a famed puppeteer , and we see a tv documentary featuring stars gushing over his talents with ludicrous hyperbole . spike jonze , who directed , brings the twisted turns of his picture to life by shooting them in dark , dramatic tones with a subtle hand-held camera . it's close enough to documentary style to make things somehow plausible , a feeling that is encouraged by the actors , who take things seriously and play their roles with sincerity . that attitude , as i'm always saying , is necessary for comedy to work properly ; it's the audacity of the film's situations that creates laughter . " being john malkovich " has an exciting enough gimmick , in that it has its title figure playing a supernatural version of himself . it's even more extraordinary to show people entering his mind ( including himself ) , developing and acting on sexual attractions within it , and using it as a vessel for re-writing history and enjoying everlasting life . the profound skill of malkovich's performance doesn't hit our conscious mind until after we leave the cinema . as most reviews have pointed out , he creates a distinctive character out of his own pompous image , but his more complicated scenes are those in which he's been inhabited by other people . his adoption of their mannerisms is so committed that we forget he's acting . we just believe it . malkovich is the man onscreen , but we think we're watching cusack , or whoever , walking around in his body . i am rambling . exciting films will make me do that . take it as a strong recommendation , and not a sign that i need to take writing classes . and when you see " being john malkovich " , remember to concentrate hard , as paying attention to its small details turns out to be very rewarding . listen carefully for names of companies , a mention of a plank of wood , and orson bean's explanation of why a certain journey cannot be taken after a certain deadline . intriguing ? good . copyright ( c ) 2000 ian waldron-mantgani <a href= " http : //members . aol . com/ukcritic " >http : //members . aol . com/ukcritic</a> 
