Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich is a refreshingly strange absurdist comedy that, largely, works, until the final act. Being John Malkovich follows a struggling puppeteer as he finds a portal that allows you to live inside of John Malkovich. If that is too weird for you already, I suggest you leave now. At the start, the seemingly dry yet, at the same time, over the top humor seemed to work. Everything was wonderfully different from anything I had seen before. There were quite a few similarities to Brazil at the beginning, in terms of how it dealt with the view of the modern workplace. As things go on, the movie gets even weirder, and, without spoiling anything, there is a lot of Malkovich. As the shift happens, the film also separates itself from the comedy at the beginning. It seemed surprisingly dark near the end, but not in a smart way similar to Jojo Rabbit. It felt incredibly shoehorned in, which was disappointing. Although it did keep some comedy, it just didn’t work after everything changed near the end, including a lot of the visual style. For the most part, the shots are quite clever. The repetition allows the audience to know what’s happening without seeing it, similar to the way Jaws worked. The characters in the film were also quite interesting. It truly felt that if there was indeed a portal into John Malkovich, this is how the events would play out. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. The standout character is John Cusak as the puppeteer. Near the end of his time as John Malkovich, that character really started working even better. Although it was quite endearing, there wasn’t much of an arc though. Where the real depth came in was in John Cusak’s two girlfriends. While I’m sure that their relationship was quite confusing at the time, it actually works as an emotional story beat in today’s modern context. Even if that was unintentional, it works. While there were a couple of problems with the tonal and structural shifts near the end, the movie was a complete joy to watch, and there was no way you could tell exactly what was going to happen next. It’s an incredibly unique, weird, and Malkovich movie. 8.7/10