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Reel to Surreal: Being John Malkovich
by Christian De Matteo

 HUGE

            Somewhere in England, Terry Gilliam is smiling.  It’s been years since a movie has come out that could be put anywhere near the same category as Brazil.  Like a Magritte painting come to life and much more fun than a Salvador Dali film, Being John Malkovich brings the surrealism vividly back to life.  If anyone ever asks me to explain surrealism, I’ll just say, “Watch Being John Malkovich.”

            Perfectly constructed from the opening puppet dance to the “half” floor John Cusack works on (literally half the height of a regular office building level), first time director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman prepare you for the utter and complete nonsense that is going to follow... nonsense that will end up making complete sense to you.  I defy anyone to watch the first half-hour and still be able to find logistical fault with any of the sequences that follow.  The film’s opening message is Just Accept This, and while such a message might normally annoy us, here it seems to be followed by the addition, Because we think you’ll like what you see.

            The reason the film works is that it gives you an altered universe.  It gives the viewer the world with some new rules, no revision to old rules of reality, just additions and addendums.  The viewer learns that a literal doorway can indeed be the passage into another person's mind.  The film also explains that it is possible to live life through another person’s five senses.  And it also explains that the common exit point for such trips is the side of the New Jersey turnpike.

            In case you don’t know, I will give you the basic plot line (skip this paragraph if you want to watch it blindly, as I recommended at the beginning of this review): John Cusack is an out of work puppeteer who loves his art so much that he refuses to cheapen it for commercial appeal.  His wife, perfectly played by Cameron Diaz, talks him into getting a job, which he does, becoming a file clerk.  One thing leads to another (as all good dates do) and he discovers a tiny door which is a portal into John Malkovich’s brain.  Craziness ensues.

            Just accept it.

            For your own pleasure, just accept it, because the movie is fantastic, fun, and alternately hysterical and thoughtful.  Playing with all sorts of philosophical/psychological points—the human soul, sexuality, gender, and what makes a human a human, etc.— the movie doesn’t miss a punch.  If it brings a thought to your head, it will be touched on in the film.

            John Cusack, who I’ve always appreciated as a talented actor, has never been so wonderfully not John Cusack.  He is no one but his character and never once do you think of Cusack the actor, only Craig Schwartz the puppeteer.  John Malkovich, on the other hand, has never been more John Malkovich, and watching the film the viewer realizes the incredible acting it must take to convincingly be yourself in a film.  The audience comes to the movie knowing Malkovich the actor, and leaves having met Malkovich the man, who is very different from his characters.  Cameron Diaz has also never acted like this before, totally frumpy, borderline skeevy, and so convincing as the love torn and sexually confused wife.  And Catherine Keener is just evil and mean.  Wonderfully so.

            John Malkovich deserves an award for this film.  John Cusack deserves an award for this film. Cameron Diaz deserves an award for this film.  Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman deserve awards for this film.  Charlie Sheen deserves… well, he’s damn funny in the film.

Being John Malkovich is easily one of the very best films of 1999, and should have won at least one Oscar, if not six.

Seeing John Malkovich
by Michael Flanagan

Solid

            At times, a film may be released that has so many people, from critics to people from North Dakota, raving about it as the best thing since sliced cheese, which leads to such high expectations that when the general viewing audience sees the film, nothing remains but an overly anticipated let down.  In the case of Being John Malkovich, that is exactly what happened to me.

            In no way was Malkovich a bad film.  It is original, powerful, funny, twisted, and well-thought-out.  But after seeing it once, if I had the choice of seeing it again or eating some sliced cheese, I'd be jovially munching away at some Swiss.  I look forward to further films from writer Charles Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, as this is in excellent starting stepping stone.

            The main problem with Malkovich is that it's a bit too long.  The movie is one unusual sequence after another, but when connected it's only a movie because it's over two hours in length.  Otherwise, it's just a collection of a very very strange sort of comedic sketches centered around the ability to go into the head of John Malkovich.

            But with all the hype, all the talk, and all the awards surrounding this film, I must mention one person who seems to have gone unnoticed:  John Malkovich.  His performance is the most Oscar-worthy in the film.  He acts as the camera, as some of the film is from his immediate perspective.  He acts also as John Cusack, doing a perfect impersonation, to the extent that I found myself wondering whether Cusack's voice was doubled over Malkovich's.  In one scene, Malkovich acts as everyone, from the waiter to the singing woman on the piano.  In short, a brilliant performance in a movie named after him and yet not really about him at all.

            What's it about, then?  You'll have to watch and figure it out, take what you will, and then wonder if your opinion is really yours in the first place.

In the original script, John's good friend was not Charlie Sheen, but Kevin Bacon.

John Malkovich's real middle name is Gavin. In the movie, his character's middle name is Horatio. Why, why, WHY?

THE Michael Stipe?  Yes, indeeddee do.  Michael Stipe, lead singer of the hit band R.E.M. was a producer of this film.  Like R.E.M.?  Money burning a hole in your pocket?  Buy an album or two from our store.