craig ( cusack ) is an unemployed puppeteer married to animal loving lotte ( diaz ) . their house is a menagerie . craig is a good puppeteer , but his choice of material is bizarre and gets him beat up . he finally caves in and looks for a job , following up on a peculiar ad for fast fingered , small statured people . he reports to the 7 1/2 floor of an office building ( the explanation how it got to have 7 1/2 floors is one of the film's funnier moments ) and , after a bizarre conversation with a receptionist ( place ) who can hear nothing correctly , gets the job . in a few days , he makes two discoveries : maxine ( keener ) with whom he falls desperately in love with and a door in his office which is a portal into john malkovich's brain . things get increasingly complicated as maxine wants to cash in on the portal , lotte meets and also falls in love with maxine , and malkovich catches on to what is happening . and then there's lester ( bean ) , the mysterious businessman who hired craig and may know more about all of this than anyone suspects . the first half hour or so of this film is full of sly wit . not laugh out loud sight gags , but really funny moments that you have to pay attention to enjoy fully . they range from craig's bizarre puppetry , to the story behind the animals in lotte's menagerie , to the story of the 7 1/2 floor , and finally to maxine's very funny first date with craig . but the final hour and a half is quite a disappointment . oddly , the film slows down when we get into malkovich's head . it stops being a wacky comedy , and that's certainly what this film should be , and tries to be a philosophical film with moments of humour . even that might have worked had the movie hit the right philosophical note . but it errs there . craig briefly discusses the significance of having access to another person's brain and the responsibility of having such access . maxine ponders the issue of being loved by two people and yet attracted to neither alone and one only when within malkovich . issues of gender identity are briefly touched upon . but the most interesting issue that could have been raised , the issue of whether it is right to sacrifice one person to save many others , is never even mentioned . i know many critics have praised this as one of the best movies of 1999 . but i cannot understand why . this is a moderately funny film that never gets as surreal as its topic would allow it to . it's a film with a strong point to make which it never makes . it's a film with good actors giving good performances for a failed cause . it's worth watching , but not worth all the hype . 
