WhatzUp

Being John Malkovich
by Derek Neff

Both the joke and the saving grace of Being John Malkovich is that it is exactly and audaciously about what the title suggests: office-employee/puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) discovers a portal that leads directly into the mind of the renowned actor John Malkovich. Literally. For 15 minutes, whoever enters this portal gets to experience what John Malkovich experiences. Never mind that the Malkovich we see here does little more than eat toast while reading the Wall Street Journal, say, or order expensive towels over the phone; for those willing to pay $200 for use of the portal, the experience of being someone else, anyone else, for just a few moments is a life-changing one. Director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman wisely earn the film's biggest laughs by playing each scene with a straight face; whether Craig is applying for a job at an office where the ceilings are so low one has to crouch down, or whether the predatory Maxine (the brilliant Katherine Keener) finds Craig's mousy wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) desirable, but only when she's inhabiting the body of Malkovich, Jones treats each absurd scene with a matter-of-factness that inherently lends humor and depth to the goings-on. Malkovich himself gamely delivers a lot of laughs at his own expense. The hilarious scene in which he enters his own portal and finds himself in a world that, as he says later, "no person should ever see," is worth the rental price alone.