Being John Malkovich
Starring- John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich, Catherine Keener, Charlie Sheen
Directed by - Spike Jonze
John Cusack plays struggling puppeteer Craig Schwartz in this surrealist, fantasy comedy drama- yes it is all of those genres. He is married to the animal loving, gender confused Lotte who is well played by Cameron Diaz. Forced to take on an office job, Craig finds a mysterious portal in his new office that strangely leads to the inside of John Malkovich’s head.
Lotte and Craig discover that they can enter Malkovich’s head for 15 minutes before they are spat out onto a local highway. Craig and Lotte, loveless in their marriage, decide to use the portal for different ways to achieve the same end- to win the heart of Maxine (Catherine Keener) a co worker of Craig with whom they are both obsessed.
Written by Charlie Kaufman, this is definitely a multi layered piece of art. The question is- what is it really about? In the first instant, it is reasonable to state that Being John Malkovich is about control and the lengths people will go to to achieve it. Craig is a puppeteer so naturally his whole life is based upon a large degree of control. He initially tries to gain control of his non existent relationship with Maxine by creating a puppet in her likeness, whilst discarding the one in his wife’s image. We see him trying to control Malkovich himself by inhabiting his body and even gaining control of his speech.
Linked to the concept of control is the theme of unrequited love. This can become a devastating cocktail when mixed with a desire to control others as we see constantly throughout the film- initially reflected in Craig’s growing madness as Maxine and Lotte’s love begins to develop. We are constantly left questioning as to what lengths Craig is willing to go to in order to attract Maxine.
Animals also feature highly in this film- Lotte works in a pet shop and seems to bring a lot of them home including a parrot and a chimpanzee. We normally see animals as wild however they provided an excellent contrast to the humans in this film as the animals seemed the more sane than their more frantically behaving human keepers.
One of the key themes though is the basic human desire to be someone else- this is indeed the tagline of the film. We see Craig and Lotte desperate to inhabit the body of John Malkovich and hence to become someone else- someone more successful and richer. This leads us to ask who is the real puppeteer in the film? Despite the fact that Craig is a puppeteer by trade, the real puppeteer is Maxine as she controls Craig, Lottie and even John Malkovich at various different points in the film. She is the only character who seems happy in her own skin and isn’t desperate to be someone else.
I absolutely loved this film and will recommend it to others not only for its depth but also for its dark comedy and numerously amusing celebrity cameo roles such as the role played by Charlie Sheen who does a great job of playing himself.
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