Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich has long been on my list of films to get around to seeing, and I finally did.  The bizarre plot is this:  Craig (John Cusack) is an unemployed puppeteer stuck in a marriage with Lotte (Cameron Diaz) who pays more attention to her animals than she does to him.  Sucking it up and taking a "real" job, Craig is hired by a filing company run by an impossibly old and rather inappropriate man (Orson Bean) on the 7½ floor of a high rise where everyone has to crouch to fit in this space between floors 7 and 8.  There he meets Maxine (Catherine Keener) who he becomes immediately and inexplicably attracted to.  Oh, and he discovers a door behind a filing cabinet that leads him directly into John Malkovich's (played by himself) mind for fifteen minutes before spitting him out on the side of the New Jersey turnpike.  Still with me?  Good, because it only gets stranger after that.

 Plot points range from selling tickets to John Malkovich's mind, to lesbian affairs that aren't really lesbian, to a monkey having flashbacks to his traumatic childhood.  If I were to compare this movie to anything, it would be to anime film of the serious but strange variety.  It does things that live action movies just don't do - at least not American ones.  The film, though, never once seems to really question the weirdness of what's going on, and that's what helps make it work

The cast works well together, though at times Cusack seems a little disjointed, but that may just be because it seemed to be such an odd roll for him.  The concept is certainly out there and provides fodder for completely unique situations and perspectives that we've never seen before and hopefully never will again.

Directed by Spike Jonze, most recently known for his off kilter adaptation of Where the Wild Things are, Being John Malkovich is a trip and a half.  I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but the half was a little bit much at times.  The thing that really threw me was the seemingly fluid sexual orientation of everyone inhabiting this strange reality.  It makes sense, sort of, but was jarring enough to pull me out of the film at times.  Over all though I would highly recommend this film if you're like I was and just haven't gotten around to seeing it yet.

**** (4/5 stars)