While many movies suffer the fate of creative bankruptcy, Being John Malkovich is a restoration study however, so bracingly original that you want to send director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman a thank you for restoring faith the magic of cinema. Even if it is ultimately beyond the thrill of comedic invention, this demented romance is gloriously funny, full of ideas that tickle the brain and even touch the heart. Hopefully in a movie that dares to ponder the existential dilemma of desperate puppeteer (John Cusack) who discovers a metaphysical portal into the brain of actor John Malkovich. The puppeteer working as an employee file on the seventh floor of an office building in Manhattan, this idea could be the basis for an entire comedy film, but Jonze and Kaufman are just getting started.
Add a devious colleague (Catherine Keener), Cusack former wife (a barely recognizable Cameron Diaz) and a business plan to exploit the excitement of John Malkovich, and you have a movie that just gets crazy as it plays in its own rules of scandal. Malkovich himself is a centerpiece of the film, riffs on his own character with evident pleasure, and when he enters his own brain via the portal are displayed with multiple versions of itself in a tour de force use of tricks digitally. Does it add up to much? Not really. But for 112 minutes liberating, Being John Malkovich a wild place to visit. -Jeff Shannon
Add a devious colleague (Catherine Keener), Cusack former wife (a barely recognizable Cameron Diaz) and a business plan to exploit the excitement of John Malkovich, and you have a movie that just gets crazy as it plays in its own rules of scandal. Malkovich himself is a centerpiece of the film, riffs on his own character with evident pleasure, and when he enters his own brain via the portal are displayed with multiple versions of itself in a tour de force use of tricks digitally. Does it add up to much? Not really. But for 112 minutes liberating, Being John Malkovich a wild place to visit. -Jeff Shannon
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