Whimsically amusing

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2011)

This is one of the quirkiest movies I've ever seen, and I love it for that very reason. There are unconventional characters abound, like Craig (John Cusack), a failed puppeteer who yearns for something different in his life, Lotte (Cameron Diaz) a peculiar homely wife who has much the same desires as does Craig, and Maxine (Catherine Keener), a woman whose resolute and blunt nature makes her a perfect seductress to BOTH of the aforementioned characters.
I never knew quite where the story was going to go next, which is exactly what I crave to see in movies -- a bit of whimsy. First Craig becomes a file clerk, then he discovers a mysterious portal which, of all things, transports you into the head of John Malkovich. The philosophical ideas that this movie recycles are fascinating: What does it mean to be yourself? Why are so many people so attracted to the idea of being another person, to the effect that they view it as some sort of fantasy ride? And is this identity substitution ethical, given that Malkovich himself was bothered by this phenomenon? And the idea of prolonging one's life through another person -- what does that say about the value of life versus death? For a philosophical mind like myself, Being John Malkovich raises all sorts of intrigue.
Craig's magnetic attraction to Maxine is a portrayal of how a large number of people feel who are chained to a marriage. It's human nature to want the forbidden fruit, especially when it's as intellectually challenging and striking as Maxine is. Craig is willing to drop his home-dwelling wife in an instant if he can feel the rush of Maxine's constant presence. And Lotte, perhaps not so coincidentally, is just the same. The main thesis of Being John Malkovich probably is that people will forgo almost anything to be somebody else, even if it's only temporary. People want that new perspective they'd never been able to see, perhaps to see what has changed, and determine what is real and what is slanted through point of view. Craig's working with puppets may be an allusion to this, as he tries his best to emulate other individuals that he knows by creating marionettes resembling them. The film could be a suggestion that in the eyes of humans, existence supersedes identity, as so many are apparently willing to subsist in the limited realm of another person's mind. Whatever the intent of writer Charlie Kaufman may have been, Being John Malkovich is an daring, eccentric adventure that no one will ever forget.