Quirky stuff. Not for everyone, but hilarious to those who get it

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2016)

Charlie Kaufman is a one of a kind storyteller, and for years now has been one of the most beguiling, uniquely creative voices in film, a man whose entire thought process and writing technique truly lie in a realm that's perpetually out of the box. Now, his stuff isn't for everyone, particularly the average film-goer who isn't ready to sing, or rather, 'think for their supper', so to speak, when it comes to payoff. But for those willing, there's cerebral wealth, hidden pockets of emotional truth and endless story beats that play out like curveball eureka moments and make us ever curious as to how the map of the man's brain plays out when he's spinning his work. Whether a bona fide masterwork (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, an all timer for me) or a cacophonic dud (Adaptation, a painfully nonsensical misfire) the guy's pen never strays into generic narrative mud. Being John Malkovich is perhaps his oddest entry yet, and believe me it's hard to settle on one to occupy that pedestal. In this one, John Cusack plays a bedraggled puppeteer who lands a job at a weirdo company called LesterCorp, a five foot tall office space located in between the 7th and 8th floors of a high rise. Their he meets sexy Catherine Keener, who throws a wrench in his lifeless marriage to frumpy, pet store owner Cameron Diaz. That's nothing compared to the film's central plot though, a trip into a head scratching metaphysical twilight zone that's equal parts amusing and disturbing. Cusack inadvertently finds a hidden portal which leads directly into the mind of movie star John Malkovich, for a few minutes at a time before dumping the cranial voyager out on the New Jersey turnpike. It's a concept so off the wall and disarming that you kind of have no choice but to roll with the punches and see where it goes, out of sheer curiosity alone. Malkovich plays himself in belligerent, over anunciating glory, and the scene where he inevitably ventures into the portal himself is deranged brilliance worthy of the surrealist hall of fame. Not all of Kaufman's quirks come out unscathed, as we begin to see the deliberation to be weird for the sake of weird shine through the frays in the blanket of authentic inspiration. But when it works, it really works, riding a wave of restrained absurdity that kicks into outright mania when you least expect it.