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Being John Malkovich (1999): 6/10

Poster art from impawards.com
In Spike Jonze’s overrated but fine movie Being John Malkovich, John Cusack is Craig Schwartz, a struggling puppeteer. He lives with his wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz), who is an animal lover, but we never find out her job. Craig needs a job so he gets a job on the 7½ floor of an office building. Soon he discovers a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich). Weirdness ensues.

Cusack is unrecognizable, and so is Diaz, but not Catherine Keener, who plays Maxine, someone else who works on the 7½ floor. I found that the quasi-romantic quality between Cusack and Keener was one-sided. Keener’s acting was rather stiff; I was disappointed. Cusack was quite good, if a little forced at times; it seems like he was forced into doing this movie. Diaz was okay, but nothing remarkable. As I said before, Keener’s acting was flat. Malkovich actually was good, I was pleasantly surprised.

The story is unusually mellow, going for a lot of the movie without music. It would make more sense to bring out the mood of the piece. I also felt like Jonze underplayed the fantasy element. Sure, I liked the 7½ floor and the portal, but if they had used more special effects (imagine a day where someone would say that) it would have been more believable, not that this concept is one that happens every day. The ending, which includes Craig’s boss Dr. Lester (Orson Bean), seemed too out there and out of the blue. Many times, we were expected to think “Oh, of course!” because they rarely explained anything. I did find it amusing at first, but after awhile it got annoying.

At the beginning there were lots of laughs, but they soon became sporadic and smaller. Of course, this isn’t a film where everyone is telling one-liners, but if they had, as I’ve said before, put in special effects, maybe humorous ones, it would have made the movie more enjoyable. It was very entertaining and imaginative, though. Only Jonze could think of something this twisted. I had no idea where this roller coaster was going to stop or if I’d just be stuck in the loop-the-loop for 105 minutes.

To me, it looks like Jonze is a puppet fan, glamorizing puppets all throughout the movie. I didn’t like the “first ending”, where everything slows down, but the last one I did like a lot. That doesn’t make any sense, right? Well, where you think the conclusion is I didn’t like, but the denouement I enjoyed. There’s not much more I can say about this flawed but enjoyable comedy.

Rated R for language and sexuality.

Review Date: January 12, 2003