An failed pastiche of music-less music videos

Rating: 5/10 (11 November 2001)

Spike Jonze is a famous music video director. He is not a famous movie director. "Being John Malkovich" illustrates why.
There are too many mood shifts. "Malkovich" has the feel of a sequence of independently crafted scenes strung together by someone who injected his differing mood into each. Every few minutes, you get a completely different feel. That is great in a sequence of music videos, where you have maybe 4 minutes to shock the audience with something that will make them remember a particular song, then move on to a completely new song with its own unique feel. Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice," the Jonze video with a dancing Christopher Walken, was brilliant for that reason, creating an instant mood that cannot (as the video itself makes abundantly clear) be sustained after the song ends. This movie has a scene that is almost a carbon copy of that dance routine (Malkovich dancing around his bedroom), but which leads nowhere, seems intended just to mix things up, and then just ends. Thud. Ok, on to the next bizarre scene! Just like in a music video.
Another example is the Catherine Keener character. She does a nice job with a classic independent-film style character. First, she is presented as a prototypical man-killer. Then, having shocked us with that, she becomes sexually ambiguous. Shocking! Then, she becomes a big seductress. Oh boy! Then, she becomes a lesbian. Outrageous! Then she becomes.... It all feels disjointed. Clever, but with inept character development and pacing for a serious film that can't decide whether it is a comedy or a drama or simply an MTV goof movie.
The plot is simply weird. There are indeed buildings in NYC with hidden floors, used by real estate barons and the like (I've been on one). Interesting use of a little-known fact. The version in this film, though, is so off-the-wall that it becomes a distraction. With high concept ideas like that, it seems at times like an extended "Saturday Night Live" skit. If you are going to do what turns into a sentimental drama, such obvious sight gags detract from the flow. I like SNL, but their sketches are best left on tv where they belong.
The casting is eccentric. I think John Cusack is miscast. His image is simply too clean-cut to pull off the failing-puppeteer routine, and while he is supposed to play a weak character, that leaves a weak center to this film. Cameron Diaz apparently wanted a change of pace from her glamour-girl comedienne roles, and she sure got that. She does fine early on, when she is put in some droll situations, but falls down toward the end when the sentimentality starts in earnest.
As for John Malkovich himself, you keep expecting him to just bust out and do something bold like, well, John Malkovich. He almost pulls this off in the scene where he dons a baseball hat, confronts the people selling tickets to...him and gets into a knock-down fight. That is the moment in the film that springs to life and makes you think that he might actually wind up doing something interesting. Indeed, it leads into the film's cleverest scene. But then we return to the Malkovich-as-zombie-controlled-by-others routine, and he loses focus. You can virtually see the spark leave him, which is a fine acting job but a miserable detraction from the film. If you have an exciting actor, why not turn him loose? Let him fight against his predicament or something. Instead, the script hamstrings him and makes him walk around in a virtual daze.
Overall, an interesting failure. And no, you cannot get from an office in midtown Manhattan to the NJ Turnpike in under 15 minutes. Try it some time. Two stars out of four.