This movie will seriously do you head in (just like it did John Malkovich's)

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2011)

The thing that caught my attention about this film was not just its weird name but that is seemed to be about some minor, but reasonably good, Hollywood actor. John Malkovich is one of those actors that we have heard of but we are not really all that familiar with the films that he has been in (at least at the time of this movie because I am sure we have all heard of RED and Con-air). As such he is a bit more malleable than maybe a megastar like Mel Gibson.
This movie is about the nature of ourselves, the idea of the soul, and the voyeuristic concept of being allowed inside somebody else. In this case it is very similar to Kathryn Bigalow's Strange Days, but somewhat more bizarre and more fantastic than that movie.
The movie is focused around a group of people, a puppeteer (John Cusack, who I did not recognise), his wife (Cameron Diaz, who, once again, I did not recognise), and some strange woman name Maxine who loves John Malkovich only when the puppeteer's wife is inside him. The puppeteer gets a job at a filing office on the 7½ floor (which is half the height of normal floors) of a building. One day, while he is working, he finds a door that leads to a tunnel. He crawls down the tunnel and discovers that it is a portal inside the head of John Malkovich, where he remains for 15 minutes, and then is spat out onto the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.
As such this film deals with the concept of the soul and the human body little more than a puppet. This is why the main character is a puppeteer because he comes to quickly control Malkovich as a puppeteer. We also learn that the portal is for a man, Dr Lester, who is actually a really old Irish Sailor, who uses the portal to go into another body when that body reaches a certain age. He has also learned how to take multiple people with him. In the end it seems that it is heading towards some sort of Buddhist reincarnation episode, where they are reborn into a new body (John Malkovich) and slowly but surely everybody will become a part of this person.
This movie is so weird, funny, and deals with so many strange concepts, that it is impossible to get all of it in one viewing (as I have done) so, unfortunately I cannot say much more about it. Hopefully when I see it again, I might be able to explain more about it, so I will deal with it then.