Spike Jonze has moved from MTV to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion...

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 1999)

Having seen Being John Malkovich at a Yale Film Society screening while visiting a friend, I can say that I am looking at one of this year's Best Picture Nominees. If it, with American Beauty and Fight Club make the Best Picture List, the 2000 Oscars may be known as the "year of the surrealist attacks upon commercial society." Being John Malkovich is not as visually surreal as one would initially assume it to be, but its plot is warped and twisted enough to require near linear cinematography. In it, a disgruntled and unemployed puppeteer who takes a white-collar job to please his wife discovers a portal into the mind of the actor, John Malkovich. The meditations upon the meaning of fame, viewpoint, relationships in and outside the sphere of normality, and the New Jersey Turnpike are handled with a veneer of black humor which lies finely over the mind-blowing and exciting ideas that these concepts raise. All of the ambiguities are classically handled by the sublime performances of the leads in Being John Malkovich, especially John Cusack, whose tall frame provides one of the most engaging sight gags in the whole film, as his office is on the 7 1/2 floor where he has to stoop: "low overhead." Cameron Diaz, Charlie Sheen, and Catherine Keener (also coming off a good performance in 8MM, one of the few saving graces of that film) are all also excellent, and John Malkovich may get a Best Supporting nod just for his rendition of what going through one's own portal is like. The short summary remains: see Being John Malkovich. Go with a friend. Talk about the movie. Talk about life. Wander for a bit. When it really hits you, sit down. Then see it again.