Good stuff - only just misses out on being first-rate

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2000)

The story could easily have been published in `The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction', or (this is less of a compliment but certainly not a criticism) `Asimov's'. Anyone who liked the movie should certainly look through these publications, and others like them. Both magazines are still very much alive and it's a pity they're not read more. But for maximum pleasure, do try to find some copies of `Fantasy and Science Fiction' from its glory days of the 1950s and 1960s. (Please don't do this if you live in Australia, because I'm trying to track down old copies myself.)
Indeed, the story would probably have reached its ideal type in literary form, so it's a pity Kaufman DIDN'T submit it to the magazines - they wouldn't have paid as much, but he could always have made a screenplay out of the idea later. Some aspects (like the thirteenth-and-a-halfth floor, and the puppetry) are well suited to cinema, but the central conceit would be better served by the written word. How does one SHOW, visually, that Craig is receiving all the sensory information that John Malkovich is receiving? I don't thing Kaufman and Jonze quite solve this problem.
There are people out there who think that good plots, intelligent dialogue, consistency and cleverness are all purely literary virtues, of no particular value in the cinema. This is a silly view. Any work of art that has a plot can be judged according to the quality of its plot; any work of art capable of manifesting intelligence can be judged according to how intelligent it is. Speaking of which, I do have one quibble ...
As everyone knows, there's this tunnel; and when one gets to the end of the tunnel, one experiences whatever John Malkovich is experiencing. What happens when John Malkovich himself enters the tunnel? The film offers an answer, and it's pretty lame. Not that I know myself what would happen. I guess it's under-determined. But here's a thought: suppose there's a time-delay, so that a person in the tunnel experiences whatever Malkovich experienced, say, 0.01 seconds earlier. THEN John Malkovich entering the tunnel would experience 0.01 seconds of John Malkovich entering the tunnel, again and again, and maybe each copy of the experience would be more degraded than the last.
I can't think of anything wrong with the details of the story. It's because of the story that `Being John Malkovich' is so good, if not the masterpiece everyone seems to think it is. The cinematic prose could do with a bit of a re-write.