Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: John Cusack,Cameron Diaz,Catherine Keener,John Malkovich
There’s a story and it goes like this. Over and over again, the makers of Being John Malkovich pitched their idea to studios executives, hoping to get some funding to make their movie. Over and over again, executives listened to the filmmakers’ pitch--and quickly showed them the door. You see, Being John Malkovich wasn’t like other movies. And Hollywood suits absolutely hate that. Fortunately for us, there is a God somewhere, and not all movie executives were born with chipmunk brains.
People see movies for different reasons. I see them for scenes. You know what I’m talking about: good scenes, scenes you and your friends will rehash repeatedly months after you’ve seen the movie. Well, if nothing else, this movie offers scenes aplenty. Being John Malkovich is the first movie I have ever seen that shows subtitled chimpanzee speech. It is the first movie ever to show a lesbian love scene--through a man’s body. (Confused? See the movie.) As far as I know, it is the first movie ever to show a 60-foot Emily Dickinson puppet. There’s even a scene--my personal favorite--set in a room full of John Malkoviches, of different shapes, sexes and sizes. And that’s not even the half of it--not even close.
A scruffy John Cusack stars as Craig, a puppeteer down on his luck and out of love with his wife (a homely Cameron Diaz). He finds work filing folders for--what else?--a filing company, located on the 7 1/2th floor of an office building. There, Craig falls for co-worker Maxine, played with disarming bitchiness by Catherine Keener. Things at the office get stranger when Craig discovers a hidden door, which, he finds out, is a portal to John Malkovich’s brain. Once inside, one sees everything from Malkovich’s point-of-view for 15 minutes, after which the ride ends and the passenger gets ejected by the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. That about covers the first 40 minutes. The rest of the film, suffice to say, works better when its randomness takes you by complete surprise.
The cast of the movie is uniformly good. Special honors, however, go to John Malkovich himself, who gives a strange and clever performance. Playing himself--or rather, other people’s idea of him--John Malkovich is astounding. A running joke throughout the movie is that whenever “fans” run into Malkovich, they can never remember any movie he was in. Anyone who sees this film should never have that problem.
The movie was directed by Spike Jonze, whose only experience had come from music videos. (Jonze did, among others, the kick-ass videos for Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” and Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.”) Too often, young directors get carried away with being too flashy with the camera. Jonze knows better, and lets the originality of the script take center stage.
Hands down one of the coolest comedies in recent years, Being John Malkovich was named the best film of the 1999 by Roger Ebert, and made a bevy of top ten lists. Unsurprisingly, it was ignored by the Academy come Oscar-time--it probably went over their empty little heads. This movie shames other movies with its relentless inventiveness. I mean, it even has a Charlie Sheen cameo for God’s sake. Some of you might find this movie a little puzzling, and maybe even boring. The only puzzling thing about it is how the hell it ever got made. And if you think it’s boring? Well, I’m sure you’ll make a fine Hollywood executive some day.
