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By JANET MASLIN
'Being John Malkovich,' which opens Friday, Oct. 29, was shown as part of the 1999 New York Film Festival. This is Janet Maslin's review, which appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 1.
mong the hits to emerge from this year's New York Film Festival -- like Pedro Almodóvar's "All About My Mother," Kimberley
Peirce's "Boys Don't Cry," Mike Leigh's "Topsy-Turvy" and Kevin Smith's "Dogma" -- none is more endearingly nutty than "Being John Malkovich." None is more
intriguingly prophetic, either. In this irresistible first feature by the stellar video director Spike Jonze, the reigning fears and obsessions of a technology-crazed, voyeuristic culture are given an even wilder workout
than they got in "The Truman Show." And the bizarre, masklike facade of today's lonely Everyman is again in the spotlight, even before Milos Forman's film about Andy Kaufman comes to town.
Jonze's film, with a terrific original screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, is not the first to explore the prospect of being able to sneak into the mind of another person. But Jonze's version is definitely the most
fun. The innovative writer and director have come up with a contemporary fun-house ride that turns identity inside out and makes puppetry an all-important survival skill, which becomes a great boon to Craig Schwartz
(John Cusack), the story's unwitting hero.
Craig, a puppeteer, is a shaggy-haired, dejected-looking fellow whose skill at pulling strings turns out to be much more valuable than he ever imagined.
Craig feels outclassed by the competition. (One of the film's many hilarious asides shows a rival staging "The Belle of Amherst" with a 60-foot Emily Dickinson.) And as he explains, "Nobody's looking
for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate." So he takes his skilled fingers out to apply for a filing job, and finds himself in a most peculiar place: on floor 7 1/2 of an office building, where both
rents and ceilings are low. This is the headquarters for the Lester Corporation, where Craig makes two life-altering discoveries. One is an imperious beauty named Maxine (Catherine Keener), whose response to being told
in a restaurant that Craig is a puppeteer is to ask immediately for the check. The other is a doorway that leads to a long tunnel, which ends somewhere in John Malkovich's brain. ( Malkovich more or less plays
himself, but the movie gives him Horatio as a middle name.)
Why Malkovich? Perhaps because he is an actor with an obvious gift for self-mockery, and because his ever-tricky presence fits perfectly into the film's string-pulling scheme. Just to begin with, it's funny to
find Craig turning up inside the Malkovich mind to find the actor eating toast and reading The Wall Street Journal in his Park Avenue apartment. (The viewer need know nothing more about Malkovich's life except
that this probably isn't it.) And Malkovich is well up to such tasks as playing a whole roomful of assorted Malkoviches and doing a "Face/Off"-style Cusack imitation once Craig gets serious about invading
the actor's privacy.
It's at about this revealing stage in the plotting that many a science fiction premise starts to fall apart. Not this one, however. Jonze's and Kaufman's inspired craziness leads into far greater complications
as the film's other characters get in on the Malkovich game. While Ms. Keener, an established indie queen whose funny, alluring work here will make her much more widely appreciated, turns conniving Maxine into
the object of everyone's affections, Cameron Diaz does a hilarious turn as Craig's frumpy wife, Lotte. Previously most thrilled by taking care of her pet chimpanzee, Lotte goes bananas over the gender-bending
experience of inhabiting Malkovich's mind as he is seduced by Maxine. Soon she is making plans to discuss sexual reassignment surgery with her allergist and warning Craig, "Don't stand in the way of my
actualization as a man."
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Without spoiling what follows, let's just say that "Being John Malkovich" features a fine cast of dryly comic actors who are very much in on the joke. That can even be said of Charlie Sheen, who turns up
for some wicked self-parody in a film that also features cameo appearances by Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and the New Jersey Turnpike.
Also right on target are Orson Bean as the irrepressible entrepreneur, Dr. Lester, and Mary Kay Place as a secretary who is always, figuratively speaking, out to lunch.
Carter Burwell's music is perfect for the film's artfully understated, fablelike tone. And Cusack is first rate as the man who asks the salient question, "Do you know what a metaphysical can of worms this
portal is?" Though the movie is nimble and very funny, its serious answer is yes.
"Being John Malkovich," which is scheduled to open commercially on Oct. 29, will be shown on Friday night and Saturday as part of the New York Film Festival.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
Directed by Spike Jonze; written by Charlie Kaufman; director of photography, Lance Acord; edited by Eric Zumbrunnen; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, K.K. Barrett; produced by Michael Stipe, Sandy Stern, Steven Golin and Vincent Landay;
released by USA Films. Shown tonight Fri 10/1 at 9 and Saturday10/2 at 3 P.M. at Alice Tully Hall as part of the 37th New York Film Festival; with a six-minute short, Armagan Ballantyne's ``Little Echo Lost.''
Running time: 112 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: John Cusack (Craig Schwartz), Cameron Diaz (Lotte), Catherine Keener (Maxine), John Malkovich (Himself), Orson Bean (Dr. Lester) and Mary Kay Place (Floris).
