Being there is better than being here

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2000)

What makes us ordinary people interested in celebrities? One factor is that celebrities seem to have more interesting lives than the rest of us; hence we can't help wondering what it would be like to be one. This movie asks how would it feel to be a moderately famous (and very good) actor for a while. Not surprisingly, while others might be content to go along for the ride, the protagonist here, Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), being a puppet-master by profession, wants to take over.
The film is set in New York, the town where success, and failing success, celebrity, is of supreme importance. Craig, unable to make a living as a puppeteer, gets a mundane filing job in an old and rather odd office. In the office Craig stumbles on a way (a "portal") to put people into the actor John Malkovich's head for 15 minutes at a time. With his co-worker Maxine he finds there is no shortage of customers at $200 a visit. But the effect on Craig's and his wife Lottie's relationship is both unexpected and dramatic.

As for John (Horatio) Malkovich, he graciously goes along for the ride as well, allowing himself to be sent up in various amusing ways. Having discovered what Craig and Maxine are up to, he forces his way through the queue and puts himself into his own mind. Guess how the world appears? In a word, Malkovichian. He even allows a few (possibly notional) subconscious skeletons (eg. ridicule suffered as a sensitive child) to be exposed.
It turns out Craig is not the only person who knows about the portal, and hey, if you're old and ugly, what better way to renew yourself than to take over a celebrity? One could sum this up as "the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" meets "Coccon." Really, the film is a very funny look at the notion of fame and the question of identity. Can you be yourself even though you are in someone else's body? The suggestion is that you can, but you might do a lot better with the right one. There's a wonderful send-up of the unctious show-biz documentary, after Malkovich, with Craig in charge, switches to puppeteering to great critical acclaim, leaving several other celebrities including Brad Pitt and Sean Penn looking a bit forlorn.
John Cusack plays Craig with wonderfully dishevelled conviction and is well supported by Cameron Diaz who is practically unrecognisable as the equally dishevelled animal loving Lotte. Catherine Keener as the mercenary Maxine has a rather unsympathetic character and some good lines. She radiates the required sex appeal though. I liked Orson Bean as the rather unbelievable 105-year-old principal of the filing company whose courtly manners are a thin veneer for his raging hormones. As for Mr. Malkovich, he plays himself as your average fastidious fairly precious actor, a persona that may or may not be near the truth but is pretty plausible. There is one gem of a scene where Malkovich/Craig tells his slick agent (Carlos Jacott) that he is switching to puppeteering. The agent doesn't bat an eyelid - acting for an insane John Malkovich is still better than representing a talented nobody. "Sure," says the agent, "Just let me call a couple of people."

The ending of the movie is a bit odd. I got the impression that most of the packed audience at the showing I went to did not realise what had happened. There is no obvious link between our last sight of Craig standing by a ramp onto the New Jersey Turnpike, the exit from the portal, and the final voice-over. Overall, though, funny, fresh, well executed and entertaining.