Few films are as wistfully inventive, bizarre and darkly silly as “Being John Malkovich.” Surely there is something else like it that hasn’t been directed by Spike Jonze or written by Charlie Kaufman, but then, I’m at a loss to say what. Yes, there have been movies that have incorporated puppets into their movies before, but to the balletic and elaborate extent that even goes as far as opening Jonze’s film? I think not.
When I first saw the film about a year ago, I thought of it as something of a mini-masterpiece. I mean, I had never seen anything like it. I’m not sure I loved the entire movie as much as I once did, but there are segments in this movie that have enchanted me and taken my mind to new places like never before.
It’s also really friggin’ funny and weird. This is the type of movie with cerebral and odd sight gags and mind-trip themes that beg to be analyzed, but you’ll have more fun if you don’t. Jonze is a pro at coyly amusing you with one of his visual tricks and then shocking you with the next.
And who could imagine such a screenplay other than Charlie Kaufman. He is an auteur screenwriter like few others. Before he directed his debut film “Synecdoche, New York” in 2008, he was possibly the best screenwriter who ONLY writes to have ever lived. His scene of many Malkoviches is so simple yet so absurdly wonderful.
And why Malkovich? Does it matter? The movie doesn’t stop to ask boilerplate questions like that, or like why John Cusack’s character would go to the lengths to lock Cameron Diaz in a cage. The film just has too many bright ideas that are infinitely more interesting.
If there’s a reason to watch this film again, right now, it’s for a cameo appearance I had totally forgotten about: Charlie Sheen. Yes, Sheen was “winning” back in 1999 too. His lines “Maybe she’s using you to channel some dead lesbian lover. Sounds like my kind of gal. Let me know when you’re done with her, yeah?” and “Hot lesbian witches! It’s fucking genius!” would fit perfectly into his ABC News interview.
Such a good film, totally agree.