"Cocoon" meets "Altered States" meets "Alice in Wonderland" meets David Lynch?

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2000)

I spend so much time bashing today's movies for being empty and imagination-starved, that I'm a little shocked when something like this comes along. "Being John Malkovich" is breathtakingly original, wonderfully warped and it sustains its demented tone all the way through, rather than casting it aside at some convenient point to focus on another lame good vs. evil showdown. (As so many other initially intriguing films do, with a good example being "Dark City".)
The cast here is superb, especially John Cusack's lonely, lovestruck puppeteer and Catherine Keener's emotionally unavailable, ruthlessly unreachable object of seemingly everyone's desire. (The movie really belongs to her; she's created one of the most fascinatingly inscrutable characters that I can recall.) And what wacky, refreshingly blunt dialogue. It has a cartoonish feel to it, like their words are frying pans to conk each other on the head with. From Keener's "I am dubious" when Cusack corners her for a date, to her "Craig! I don't find you attractive!" when he, and his wife, both attempt to seduce her at the same time. Or Cusack's wife (Cameron Diaz) brutally telling him "Don't crowd me, Craig", or Charlie Sheen, in a funny cameo as himself, explaining to a distraught Malkovich that "The truth is for suckers." Or a lukewarm fan telling Malkovich "You were really great in that movie where you played the retard." And finally, in one of the funniest lines I can remember, Malkovich, after his reality has been severely tampered with, screaming at some guy in a bar "I am not John Malkovich!" then attacking him.
The movie careens off in all sorts of unanticipated directions, while always remaining faithful to character and premise. It explores notions of identity, celebrity, mortality and finality in a very unique way. But at its core it's really about the pain of loneliness and the inability to connect. And it all climaxes with a truly ingenious and exciting chase scene. What a gloriously nutty, seductively sullen vision. It will leave you a little dizzy when it's done.