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Music video director Spike Jonze makes his incredible feature debut with Being John Malkovich, one of the most inventive, unconventional, yet uproariously entertaining movies you could ever hope to see in (relatively) wide release, in the process answering the age-old question, “What happens when a man enters the portal of his own ripe vessel?”
John Cusack plays Craig, a gifted but struggling New York street puppeteer who takes a paper-shuffling job in a vertically attenuated 7th-and-a-half floor office. One day he discovers a small door behind a filing cabinet in Deep Storage which leads into the mind of inscrutable actor John Malkovich, where the visitor gets to sight-see for 15 minutes before tumbling out alongside the Jersey Turnpike. Really.
Confiding this curious windfall to Maxine (the fetching, too-hard-too-find Catherine Keener), a fellow 7th-halfer and newfound object of infatuation, he’s persuaded by her to set up an after-hours operation selling rides in J.M.’s psyche for $200 a pop. They make money hand over id until a strange triangle -- well, quadrilateral, really -- develops between Maxine, Craig, his goofy zoophilic wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz, who’s supposed to be homely, but is still amazing even in a dingy Brillo pad wig), and Malk. There’s also a little matter of the evil genius who cooked up the portal in the first place.
It’s all too much fun. In addition to Malkovich (who’s the source of much the the film’s wack energy -- do you think anybody would have come out to see Being Tom Brokaw?), there’s also a great cameo from Charlie Sheen playing the best role he’s ever had -- himself -- briefer appearances by Sean Penn, and one shot of Brad Pitt that’s so quick you’ll probably miss it (which is as it should be). Catch this one, too. A
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