Being John Malkovich

Day 25

Film 23

Being John Malkovich is another one of those strange imperfect movies. It makes you think. It plays with the medium and the audience's expectations.

Being John Malkovich asks the question: 'What would happen if someone discovered the door to another person's mind?' It probes this at a very sophomoric level at first, letting us imagine what it would be like to be someone else while at the same time letting us get the feel for the ragtag group of leads.

The film is weakest in the beginning. Craig Schwartz (Cusack) is a loser artist who's more pitiful than love able. The setup feels a little long, as we are introduced to Craig's wife Lotte (Diaz) and the love interest Maxine Lund (Keener.) The time is stretched over half fulfilled gags and awkward scenes between Craig and Maxine that do not settle very well.

The discovery of the door into Malkovich's mind catapults the film from an awkward romantic comedy into a sobering view of humanity and identity. The contradictions laced into the film force you to think. The love affair between Lotte Schwartz and Maxine Lund becomes a twisted mess of ideas. Untangling this mess of homosexuality and transgender identity is as thrilling as it is daunting and makes for a compelling mind screw. Craig Schwartz degrades from a pitiful but like able guy into a sociopath who cannot get over a woman. His relationship with Lund feels like a stalker's sick fantasy, crossing the lines of rape through another man's body.

Being John Malkovich dares to do the unexpected. The questions it asks and the ways it asks them are new and exciting. Where it fails in the beginning it makes up for it at the end leaving a discomforting human aftertaste.