Being John Malkovich **** (1999, John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener) – Classic Movie Review 818

Director Spike Jonze’s wonderfully odd, brilliantly clever, dazzlingly inventive fantasy comedy happily finds John Cusack on his best form. And there’s also the inestimable benefit of John Malkovich (as himself) gamely and brilliantly sending himself up.

In the Alice in Wonderland-style plot, John Cusack plays Craig Schwartz, a humble, struggling street puppeteer who looks for a clerical job on a block’s floor seven and a half. He meets and fancies married co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener). And eventually, via a doorway behind a filing cabinet, he finds a portal that leads directly into the brain of film actor John Malkovich before falling out of the air beside the New Jersey Turnpike.

Happily, the often brilliant but variable actor Malkovich produces an excellent little tour-de-force as himself, and in one scene, himselves. Keener is first rate and Cameron Diaz is unrecognizably frumpy as Craig’s wife, Lotte Schwartz, in a game support turn. And, anyway, when is the ultra-reliable Cusack not on his best form?

Being John Malkovich is a unique cult movie, with inspired writing by Charlie Kaufman, and it’s handled in brio style by director Spike Jonze in 1999. There were three Oscar nominations – best supporting actress (Keener), direction and writing – but, shamefully, no wins.