Review of Being John Malkovich (1999) by Lewis E — 23 Feb 2014

Weird, wacky but wonderfully inventive. Main premise revolves around a skilled but unsuccessful puppeteer who finds a portal into John Malkovich's head. He then uses Malkovich to get with a girl for whom he has an extreme infatuation towards.

The concept may be hard to take in at times but it is difficult not to appreciate it due to its sheer originality. One of the impressive features was the beginning which delicately introduces the audience to this unfulfilled puppeteer.

Credit to John Malkovich who allowed himself to be the subject of such a storyline, while also putting in a good performance. While not off-the-scale hilarious, I love its odd sense of humour which caters to my laughing needs so I found it pretty funny.

Furthermore, the questions it raises about our meta-physical being, the mind and identity are interesting to say the least. The explanation and the eventual revelations over potential problems of this mind-entering process are absurd but I'm glad they did not spend too much time trying to offer scientific explanations as this would only further undermine the plot in trying to explain something which was clearly unexplainable.

I don't get why Cusack and Cameron Diaz's characters have such as wild lust for this 'Maxine' woman when she is clearly quite rude to Cusack; plus she isn't particularly good looking.

This might have made the movie a little less realistic but with a story like this I doubt that was what they were going for. The ending, like the beginning, was a work of pure art, successfully evoking a range of emotions in the viewer while bringing the story arch into full circle.

Understandably, a film involving people being able to go inside someone's head might go over some people's heads. However, I feel cinema success is not obtained through high budget action films or needless sequels but rather through adventurous and daring screenplays such as this which invites viewers into a new world of fantasy.

If you have an open mind then I suggest you open your mind to 'Being John Malkovich'.