Cusack plays puppeteer Craig and is married to a startlingly frumpy and frizzy Lotte (Cameron Diaz). Working in the 1/2 floor office between floors at a dead-end filing job, he discovers a portal that leads into John Malkovich's mind. The portal is a miniature door behind a cabinet. Once immersed within, the subject will spend a few-minute time period within John Malkovich's mind, before being ejected beside the NJ Turnpike.
Cusack wises up and recognizes an enlightening experience for what it is and begins advertising and charging admission to enter the mind of John Malkovich. He is accompanied by Maxine (deftly played by Catherine Keener), who's caustic demeanor when up against Craig's fumbling advances is hysterical. Soon, people are flocking to the office building for an after-hours shot at the cosmic experience of being inside the mind of Malkovich.
And that makes for absurd cinema. Because for the most part, when the individual enters the mind of Malkovich, he is ordinarily doing the most mundane of tasks; eg, one happy customer is inside his mind during the tedious chore of ordering some home goods from a catalogue. Yet they emerge, magically transformed.
It's all about Malkovich. This film is a one-of-a-kind and has paved the way for other filmmakers who dabble in the surreal and out-of-linear time continuum. By defying conventions such as these, it has made possible a whole new school of thought in film-making that may not have otherwise ever been conceptualized. For instance, the current 'Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind,' relies on some of the 'the-action-is-happening-in-his-mind' type action.
We all know that neurology and study of the mind is an inexact science. It took the creators of 'Being John Malkovich' to say, 'Hey look filmmakers, there is all this unchartered territory to play with here. Let's go.'
It truly turns illogical as the love triangle between Lotte, Rob and Maxine gets more and more surreal. Throw in a bunch of exotic animals and a scene in which Maxine is locked up in the cage with the pet chimp, bound and gagged, and you get a leader in cinema of the insane. Throw in a subplot in which the chimp, in an intense breakthrough provided through a chimp-flashback, is able to untie Lotte from her bondage as it comes to realize the source of its mental anguish and years of repression.
The script is such a deviation from the norm that it had to have been one the actors immediately fell in love with. It's certainly refreshing to watch them, right on the mark, as they play their various roles. Cusack's Rob is such a difference from the conventional composed Cusack character. The unexpected change is delightful. He pulls off the mixed-up, uninspired (before meeting Lotte and discovering JM's portal), disallusioned Rob very convincingly. His character is sort of messy, not quite fresh. His hair is long and his clothes are often dissheveled.
He's rooting aimlessly before meeting Maxine and discovering JM's portal. After that, events escalate and the plot twists in and around and back in on itself; like an acid trip in bizarre world. There are some priceless scenes where the actor John Malkovich gets to shine, like when Rob begins figuring out how to use his body as an instrument: the ultimate master and puppet. And of course, the scene in which Malkovich has caught on to what's been happening with his head and demands to enter the portal into his own mind.
"Malkovich-Malkovich?"
A must-see for any diehard cinematic buffs.