Slapstick of Identity/Sexuality Confusion Showcases Kaufman's Twisted Writing

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2004)

This cozy low-budget slapstick production, where the characters humorously struggle with confusions of identity and sexuality while being inside actor-in-the-real-world John Malkovich, showcases the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's twisted talent, while Spike Jonze is surprisingly invisible as a director. Some settings to generate an unusual atmosphere work (i.e., the seventh and half floor with a low ceiling), while the others don't (i.e., the Schwartzs' unusual pets such as a chimpanzee). Malkovich should have differentiated his acting more when Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is inside and controls him. The Malkovich-inside-Malkovich sequence, which is somehow reminiscent of an endlessly looped picture on a monitor when a camera is aimed at the monitor, is not unpredictable enough and seems to be added only to satisfy some demanding audience who would question this if it was not there.