Being John Malkovich (1999)
Director
Starring
Last On
01:20-03:40
Tue 15th Dec 2009 140m
Film4
Synopsis
This crazy, surreal comedy from director Spike Jonze consistently dazzles while never losing its grip on unreality. It's a daringly original metaphysical fantasy that still finds time to ponder the human status quo, sexual gender and identity, as down-on-his-luck street puppeteer John Cusack takes a job at a strange Manhattan firm where a small door hidden behind a filing cabinet reveals a dark tunnel leading into the head of movie star John Malkovich. When he tells co-worker Catherine Keener about his new-found celebrity joy ride, they form a business partnership that offers jaded New Yorkers the chance to be the actor for 15 minutes at $200 a time. Super-smart, hip and darkly subversive (the sequence where Malkovich enters his own brain portal and finds a world completely populated by images of himself is a classic), Jonze's Kafkaesque mind trip is so far-out in conservative Hollywood terms, it's a real shock to the system. The fact that it manages to carry its open-mouthed audience through every awesomely enigmatic turn is its greatest accomplishment.