Being John Malkovich
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Movie Reviews of Being John Malkovich
Movie Review: Charlie Kaufman is a Genius, Pt. 1
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike probably most "Being John Malkovich" fans, I actually saw the later Kaufman-Jonze collaboration "Adaptation" first. I thought, and think, that that movie is brilliant, but I was a little disappointed in "Being John Malkovich" the first time I saw it. It was very good, yes, but I was hoping for a bit more, since most reviewers seem to think it as good or better than that later film. Well, yesterday I got through watching "Being John Malkovich" for the third time, about 2 years after I first saw it, and it's grown on me quite a bit. I still don't think it's quite as good as "Adaptation", but it's pretty close.
"Being John Malkovich" is one of those movies that seems to take place in the real world, except that there are a bunch of odd details that aren't right. Ex: Puppeteering is a major artform; everyone in the world is a total oddball; there's a building with a 7 1/2 floor which contains a portal into John Malkovich's brain. This movie is so massively yet still so unobtrusively weird that I'm sure it requires a very specific taste to fully get into it. You definitely need a taste for the odd.
The story centers around Craig Schwartz, (John Cusack) a failed street-puppeteer who lives in depression with his strange but good-natured wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) and their 100 or so pets. Lotte suggests that Craig get a job, a real job, and he does so, becoming a filing clerk at a small business on the 7 1/2 floor of a large office building. (The ceiling is all of 4 1/2 feet high, and they have to emergency-stop the elevator to get to the floor.) Craig is immediately smitten with fellow 7 1/2 floor-dweller Maxine (Catherine Keener). Maxine is a cruel and cold-hearted individual, but Craig can't help himself and continues to pursue her in spite of her utter contempt for him. His efforts appear to be going nowhere until one day when he finds a small door hidden behind a filing cabinet. He crawls in it to discover that this is a portal into John Malkovich's brain, where you watch what Malkovich sees for 15 minutes, after which you are dumped in a ditch by the road And then things really get weird, as Craig uses this portal as a way to connect with Maxine, but Lotte and others get drawn in and Malkovich finds out what's going on and we learn of the real purpose of the portal and on and on. I don't want to go on, cause the inexplicable, labyrinthine plot is much of the appeal of the film. (Though it isn't just crazy for crazy's sake, and actually comes together well.) Beyond this, Kaufman has tons of clever, intelligent dialogue to support the wacky plot.
This movie is damn hard to review, cause it's so strange, and yet much of the appeal and humor is character-driven. The unbelievable, oddball characters are all interesting, usually funny and often endearing. Cusack is our main character and sort of the straight man of the film. Still, he's not quite normal-- He does, after all, want to be a famous puppeteer. He's a typical "tortured artist" with a scruffy beard and a ponytail, but you can't help but like him. He's just so hapless, and John Cusack always does the average man thing well. Orson Bean is great as Dr. Lester, Craig's boss and a 125 year old lech. (As Craig says, "It's pretty funny once you get past how disgusting it is.) Catherine Keener is fantastic as Maxine, one of the most black-hearted characters I've ever seen. Yeah, she doesn't physically hurt anyway, but her relentless verbal abuse is unbelievable, as she responds to anything Craig says to her with a vicious, personal barb. Finally, John Malkovich is wonderful as himself (sort of), and he hits a great range of notes and isn't afraid to make himself look bad. (No one with half a brain would think this really has anything to do with who Malkovich really is, but lotsa people don't have half a brain...)
Though "Being John Malkovich" is a comedy, it's a rather thoughtful and ultimately very sad one. It touches on themes of isolation, the desire to be someone else and the ultimate absurdity and uncontrollability of human life. This absurdity is encapsulated in the central conflict, in Craig's unrequited love for Maxine; there's no reason why he should love her, she is, as Craig himself says, evil, but he can't help himself; Man is capable of reason, but emotion rules us and emotion only sporadically makes sense. (And applying reason to emotion never helps, not in my experience, anyway.)
Though I can't help but see Kaufman as the primary author of the film, Jonze deserves a ton of credit for bringing the vision to fruition. Making a film this wacky seem real must be damn near impossible, but Jonze pulls it off with aplomb and spectacular technical proficiency. The film moves from near conventional scenes to first-person perspective, to dream sequences and flat out surrealism. Yet, for all the technique displayed in the film, it rarely seems extraneous. Jonze doesn't seem to be showing off, the flash is all just necessary to navigate the inexplicable plot. The score is also fantastic, truly beautiful and often-moving, and it allows for a lot of the emotional impact in the film, particularly in the brilliantly conceived and heartbreaking final scene.
Man, this review is no good, but you can't do justice to a movie this good and this odd in a review. You'll just have to watch it.
Grade: A
Movie Review: Invasion of the Body Snatcher(s)
Summary: 5 Stars
Stop laughing and step back a minute---"Being John Malkovich" isn't funny, it's a horror movie. Alright---it's funny, *and* it's a horror movie.
Somewhere, somehow, sometime, someplace (possibly Providence, Rhode Island) Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft got together. Genes were spliced. The warped and twisted biological result was Spike Jonze, one of modern cinema's most insidious, surreptious, diabolically gifted and wickedly talented filmmakers and the most Terrible of the Enfants Terribles stalking the American academy of Arts and Letters today.
Having helmed the infamous Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video, Jonze and partner-in-crime Charlie Kaufman were ready to cobble together a Trojan Horse and aim it at the dark heart of Fortress Hollywood.
They succeeded massively with the darkly subversive "Being John Malkovich", the story of a disaffected puppeteer (played by John Cusack) who discovers a secret aperture into the mind of actor John Malkovich.
Some wrong-headedly think this is a surreal comedy. Poor, naive, childish innocents, I say! I'm here to contend that for all its comedic trappings, "Being John Malkovich" is a horror movie that H.P. Lovecraft himself would appreciate.
Yes, I know, the title itself is risible, the notion of a portal into John Malkovich's consciousness makes one giddy, and you can't possibly have a proper cosmos-ripping horror movie with Cameron Diaz, John Cusack, John Malkovich, and Charlie Sheen. I know all the standard objections.
But first: if you haven't seen "Being John Malkovich", stop reading this silly review and go buy the thing. You'll be utterly delighted and glad you listened to my advice.
Alright, for those of you who have seen this wicked little gem of sheer cinematic subversion---listen up: "Being John Malkovich" is a horror movie, not a comedy, a long-toothed snarling wolf dolled up in comedic sheep's clothing. Think not? Fine: let's leave the idea of John Malkovich having his body snatched out of it. If the idea of a blameless, innocent, blithe little girl being invaded by a small platoon of slobbering geriatrics isn't horror, then nothing is horrible.
Still skeptical? That's fine, but be warned: everything in in Jonze and Kaufman's little tour de force here is expertly stage-managed and distilled to a single purpose, and that is fooling the innocent, naive viewer to the movie's singularly malign purpose: body-snatching is front and center here. If you think this is a comedy, dear friend, then you're being duped with fine food and good wine, just the tools the wicked immortal Dr. Lester (a fine turn by the great Orson Bean, with nods to Lovecraft's "Terrible Old Man") used, as the evil Captain Merten had used before him.
Think about it this way: what happened to Malkovich once Craig and Maxine's little entrepreneurial scheme took on a life of its own? Still feel like a good horse laugh? I'm thinking a stiff Scotch is more in order.
The direction and cinematography here are spot on, and every scene tells. The acting is also superb, from Cusack's dangerously desperate puppeteer, to veteran actors Bean and the late Byrne Piven (Captain Merten, who pities dwarves), to Catherine Keener, who plays the wicked, devious, Machiavellian shrew Maxine. I despised her every second she was on screen---good job, Miss Keener!
The real plaudits go to Cameron Diaz. I had never really considered Diaz an actress of substance, but her wildly schizophrenic romp as the crazed animal-lover Lotte showed the woman has some finely honed acting chops. Charlie Sheen sinks his fangs into his tiny but tasty role, and Malkovich purrs through the movie like a kitten.
Surreal, quirky, brilliantly paced, constantly resourceful, occasionally creepy, with a haunting, pining score by Carter Burwell and Bjork that calls to mind Philip Glass's composition for "Mishimia", "Being John Malkovich" is a clever, wicked, blackly funny work of genius, but it is very much a horror film. Having returned from a jaunt through his own tortured subconscious, Malkovich roars "I have seen things no man should have to see." Truer words couldn't have frothed from the lips of one of Lovecraft's tentacle-tormented heroes.
Still not convinced? Look at "Malkovich's" ample horror trappings: a skewed, twisted crawlspace of an office, forcing its denizens to walk in a crouch and situated between the floors of the building; a Terrible Old Man, confounded by an illusory speech impediment, who has chronicled the life of his unwitting host in a back-room; Dwarf Love;---and of course, bodysnatching.
To say nothing of this prospect: imagine the sensation of a horde of hungry, greedy, ancient eyes crawling across your body, a mulifaceted invasion force perched just behind the two innocuous irises of your dinner-mate.
Does that give you the giggles? It gives me the crawls.
Still laughing?
JSG
Movie Review: Masterfully ingenuous and utterly incomparable...
Summary: 5 Stars
Charlie Kaufman may be the greatest screenwriter of our generation. He's written three of the greatest screenplays in recent memory (`Being John Malkovich', `Adaptation' and `Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind') and those are just the three I've seen (to be honest, I was not entirely impressed with `Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' and I never saw `Human Nature'). He has a knack for creating scenarios that are entirely improbable yet tap into the very soul of a human. His films are not merely comedic entertainment but are important and philosophical in their relation to human nature and innate desire.
`Being John Malkovich' is not your typical comedy.
The film tells the story of puppeteer Craig Schwartz who is growing tired of not having an audience for his work. After he is persuaded by his wife to get a job he finds that his new working environment is opening portals (quite literally) to an entirely new existence. Hidden away in his very workroom is a portal into the mind of John Malkovich, the actor. Yes, by crawling through a long cramped tunnel one can be John Malkovich for fifteen minutes before being spit out over the Jersey turnpike. Craig, having fallen for his intriguing coworker Maxine, devises a plan with her to charge admission into the mind of Malkovich, but entering that portal changes their lives in many other ways.
There are so many ways to interpret this movie that I feel as if touching upon them all would be too difficult a task at this point. I will admit that watching this film, and even more so just contemplating its meanings afterward, changed me in a way.
To be completely honest, I woke up wanting to be John Malkovich.
The film exposes some very human truths, in regards to the desire to be someone we're not and the desire to see ourselves through someone else's eyes. It also, in a somewhat humorous way, exposes the worthlessness of celebrity in itself, the almost faux notion that making a name for ones self really makes a difference. First we have Craig who just wants to practice his work, but he hasn't the name to do so. In Malkovich he finds a way to expound upon his love of puppeteering. Then you have his wife Lotte who is unsatisfied with her existence in finds in Malkovich something that feels right. Then you have Maxine who desires to be desired, and while she is desired by many she is not desired for the right reasons, until she stares into Malkovich's eyes and sees Lotte starring back at her.
And then we have Malkovich. What I thought was so great about the script was that it in a humorous and sub-plotted kind of way approached that fact that celebrity is not as glamorous as one expects. Malkovich is regarded as a respected and loved actor yet no one that talks to him really knows what movies he has made or what roles have made him so `respected'.
"Who's John Malkovich?"
The films brilliant prose is bolstered by the fantastic, and I mean FANTASTIC, performances by the entire cast. John Cusack is awkward, goofy and tired, which masterfully captures his characters unhappiness with his lot in life. Cameron Diaz is brilliantly sporadic with her actions and feelings, adding layers to her characters inborn struggle to be herself. Catherine Keener is flawless as Maxine. She demands our attention with her marvelous manipulation of our emotions. We want her to get what she wants even if it destroys us. This movie though, is called `Being John Malkovich', and honestly, it is John Malkovich himself that drives it all home. His brilliant portrayal of himself is utterly flawless. I have liked him in the past and found him stale in the past, but this performance is astonishing in every sense of the word; especially as it draws to a climax and he starts to unravel.
`Being John Malkovich' is funny, sure, but like Kaufman's other work, `Being John Malkovich' is so much more than a typical comedy. It answers questions (or at least asks very many) about life, human interaction and the very root of who we are and who we want to be.
Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Of course you have.
Movie Review: "Inventive" and "Original" do not begin to describe....
Summary: 5 Stars
Charlie Kaufman has the distinction of writing the two most deranged screenplays I know of with "Adaptation" and it's predecessor, "Being John Malkovich". Here it became clear that a mind of unsurpassed creativeness had been loosed among the movie-making crowd.
Four fantastic performances are given by John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener and Malkovich himself, and they are guided by Spike Jonze' direction and Mr. Kaufman's screenplay.
Cusack is a gifted, tortured, starving artist, and not just any artist, but a puppeteer - working with marionettes. The film opens with a marionette performance so poignant it seems nearly human - the performance reminds me of the opening of "White Nights" in which Baryshnikov dances "Le Jeune Homme Et La Mort". In White Nights it takes a moment before you recognize that you are watching a performance of a ballet, and in this film the marionette is so life-like it doesn't require much suspension of disbelief to think the puppet alive. In another similarity between the two films later on a human-sized marionette is made to "dance" the lead role in "Swan Lake" surrounded by human ballerinas. The rest of this film is SO startlingly original that it's easy to overlook the fact that the movie has some REALLY skilled puppeteering in it.
But I digress. Puppeteering doesn't pay Cusack well, so there are money arguments between John and wife Cameron Diaz, who looks like a cross between a street person and a washer-woman here. She works in a pet store and keeps a collection of animals including a dog, ferret, bird and chimpanzee - all apparently with some form of veterinary post-traumatic stress disorder. Diaz' Lotte is the kind of person who forms close emotional ties with animals but has more difficulty being intimate with other humans.
Desperate for a paying job, Cusack thinks his nimble puppeteering fingers make him ideal for a company that specializes in filing, so he gets a job in an old New York building on the 7 1/2th floor - the kind of quirky little thing added in just for "flavor" in this film.
At his new job Cusack discovers Maxine - an attractive but sarcastic New York woman who has had it with most men, and Cusack's Craig Schwartz certainly seems like most men to her.
Craig also discovers something he wasn't expecting behind a filing cabinet: a portal that leads to 15 minutes inside the head of John Malkovich before dumping you on the side of a New Jersey highway.
If it seems like I've given away the whole story - I haven't. These are all plot setups that lead to the development of a narrative that doesn't just have a "twist". THIS story "twists" every five minutes.
On my second viewing of the movie my greatest regard is for John Malkovich himself, who not only allows himself to be spoofed, but participates in the spoofing with great gusto. On the first trip "into Malkovich" we track him as he's getting ready to go out. He goes down to the street where a cab is hailed for him. The driver looks back and instantly recognizes him.
"Hey.... you're that actor, aren't you?"
"Yes", Malkovich replies.
"I loved you in that movie where you played the jewel thief".
"I never played a jewel thief". (Although a few years later John Malkovich actually does play a jewel thief in Johnny English.)
A few other times other characters bring up his performance in the jewel thief movie - a great running gag demonstrating how easy human nature makes it to spread urban legends and other incorrect information.
John Malkovich has been in a large number of my very favorite films: The Killing Fields, Dangerous Liaisons, Places in the Heart, Shadow of the Vampire, In the Line of Fire and Of Mice and Men. (Fans of "Sex and the City" will enjoy the moment when Willie Garson walks by Malkovich in a restaurant and compliments him on his performance in the movie where he played "that retard".) Now one of my favorite John Malkovich movies is the one that bears his name.
Movie Review: The Death of Art
Summary: 5 Stars
Watching a film written by Charlie Kaufman is to understand what it's like to be a cinephile. I mean, for somebody to dedicate so much of their life to the observation of others (if only for a couple of hours), there has to be a certain sense of self loathing, a desire to be somebody else, to get outside one's own head. I certainly know that this is the case with me, and probably the reason why I've spent more time watching, reading, writing and now making films about the lives of others, rather than just living my own.
But what happens when life and art begin to merge, so much so that they become indecipherable from one another? That's the subject of the first film collaboration between Kaufman and director Spike Jonze (whose real name is Adam Spiegel). If you haven't seen the movie yet, this all must sound terribly pretentious. Trust me, it isn't. It's actually a hilarious film, and one that's not nearly as "arty" as it's reputation would have you believe.
The protagonist of the movie is Craig Schwartz (John Cusack in his best performance to date), thou I use the term protagonist very loosely. He's actually quite creepy, in the mold of a Rupert Pubkin, but seems oblivious of this fact, which is what makes him such a tragic figure in the end. Struggling to secure work as a puppeteer, he eventually relents to his wife's gentle suggestion that he look for work outside the field of puppetry. In one particularly funny scene, he goes to her for comfort after being slugged by a man who took offense at his sexual suggestive puppet show (a forerunner to Team America: World Police), and she says to him, "Oh, Craig. Not again." Anybody who's ever experience professional rejection will immediately understand where his character is coming from.
Eventually, he settles on a job as a filing clerk and develops a crush on his verbally abusive co-worker, Maxine. And though she shows little or no interest in him and is hardly the cultural beauty you'd expect to find in such a role, we understand his attraction immediately. Much of this can be attributed to Catherine Keener, who emotes such a casual coolness that it becomes difficult to separate her from the character, a fact which has dogged her to this day (at least in my mind). In fact, she's so desirable that even Craig's sexually-confused wife, Lotte, joins in on the Maxine obsession. This after Craig shows her a portal into the mind of John Malkovich. The two begin to date, but only when Lotte's inside the Malkovich vessel. Craig, watching his wife carry on an illicit affair with the object of his affection, stews, and after a couple of encounters, which last only fifteen minutes (an obvious homage to Andy Warhols' theory on fame), he intercedes, tying up his wife and taking her place inside Malkovich's head.
Got it? No? Good. Now you'll just have to see the movie. Because trust me, there's no review that could do proper justice to the genius that is Being John Malkovich. It's a film that reflects our ever-growing fascination with celebrity, even one as arbitrary as Malkovich himself. That's not to say he isn't a fascinating character, he is, just that he's one I have a hard time imagining the readers of People magazine or Us Weekly identifying with. Or as Bob Shaye, the head of New Line Cinema, put it, "Being John Malkovich? Why can't it be Tom Cruise?" But to those of us living in the fly-over states, out of the glare of New York and L.A., we understand that it doesn't really matter, we'll attach ourselves to any celebrity, no matter how small. This is a point proven by the fact that my local newspaper recently ran a cover story on a former resident (who lived two counties over, no less!) simply because he had a brief cameo in the recent Michael Bay picture, The Island. For better or worse, this is what our country has become, and this film is a near-flawess comment on that.