New york post said -
"Being John Malkovich, which contains not a frame of extraneous footage, is more than a must-see movie: It’s a must-see-more-than-once event."
Let me tell you something before I start the review, You know last week I watched a so called Paisa vasool entertaining comedy called Zoolander! To tell you frankly! I liked it, it made me smile here and there, but in truth it was a collection of jokes that have been done before, re-using humor, just with different people, different delivery, and different places. What strikes you about Malkovich is simply how fresh it is.
The PLOT
Craig Schwartz(John Cusack) is a gifted puppeteer whose street performances of the twelfth century drama of Abelard and Heloise are ignored by passersby. The sizzle has gone out of his marriage** to Lotte(Cameron Diaz), a pet store employee who lavishes all of her emotions on a sick chimp and the other animals in their cramped apartment.
Schwartz’s life turns around when he takes a job as a file clerk for a firm located on the 7 1/2th floor of an office building. The wacky receptionist(Mary Kay Place) misunderstands everything he says, and the boss(Orson Bean) is a long-lived eccentric with strange tastes. Then there is Maxine(Catherine Keener), the beautiful co-worker, Craig falls for her hook, line and sinker, but she is JUST NOT INTERESTED!
One day Schwartz discovers a hidden passageway behind a large filing cabinet. He crawls through and finds himself magically inside actor John Malkovich’s brain. For 15 minutes he inhabits another world before he is dumped out. Craig demonstrates his discovery to Maxine, He teams up with her for an after-hours enterprise of selling access to the celebrity’s psyche for$200 per head.
Trouble starts when Craigs wife discovers she is turning Transexual and also falls for Maxine. The trouble gets doubled for Craig when Lotte who takes the journey inside the mind of JM(John Malkovich), she becomes addicted. Her fondest moments are when she is residing in Malkovich while he’s being seduced by Maxine. The jealous very selfish Schwartz finds a way of using this transportation for his own glory and sexual satisfaction. Because all he wants is to be with Maxine!
So much for the plot!
But to say that the movie is about those few sentences is like saying Matrix is about dogging bullets. It doesn’t do justice to the scale, the imagination, the humor and overall feeling of Being John Malkovich.
Director Spike Jonze does a fine job orchestrating this Alice-in-Wonderland extravaganza. and special mention about Screenplay writer Charlie Kaufman, to have come up with wildly inventive and an Almost impossible amalgamation of sexual politics, Selfishness, Greed, Psychologically issues like the nature of consciousness, the mind-body dichotomy, General topics like privacy, and the thirst for immortality.
GUYS TAKE A BOW!
The performance especially by Catherine Keener as Maxine is extra-ordinary, Its such a complex character, you never know what is going on in her mind! yet you know something is wrong, but on surface she is relaxed, knowing exactly what she wants! Ms Keener who was nominated for this role is a treat to watch! John Cussak and Cameron Daiz the ease in which they ease into the characters is simply put OUTSTANDING! and what can I say about John Malkovich himself! **To see an actor play himself, but with another person controlling him, and watch the two struggling to come out is not something you are going to see everyday.
There is certainly a complex story at work here, and quite a few story threads to hold onto at the same time. It’s also not the kind of humor which works in so many different levels that one might be forgiven to ask for a recorded laugh track to punctuate the same, so if your brain is too tired to figure out a joke, you may want to save it for another night. For the rest of you. if you don’t love it, you will certainly not be able to accuse it of being the same-old.