Hey folks, Harry here with Segue Zagnut's review of a movie I can't wait to see this Saturday.... BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. It seems I've been following this movie for years... well at least over a year now. Actually I guess I can say that with just about any of these films coming out, but this was one of the ones I was looking at with a strong sense of curiousity. What the hell was it about? Was it a documentary? A fantasy? What is it? I've been trying to stay away from spoilers, but it seems the film is a helluva lot more than 'just a comedy' and I'm looking forward to it for that reason. Well... Here's Segue... That OOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDDD MAN!
Head Geek,
This is Segue Zagnut. I think that everybody hurts sometimes, but there is also an ache. A wanting. A need. I think a huge portion of us are looking for a definition of that need.
I turn thirty in an indeterminate length of time. All my life I've had corporations tell me what I am. Gen Xer. Consumer. Original. Slacker. What I should have. Credit Card Debt. Levi's jeans. Nike shoes. Attention Deficit Disorder. What I should want. Starbuck's coffee. Smoke free bars. The winning lottery ticket. And most importantly who I'm supposed to be. Kurt Cobain. Bill Gates. MTV. But like THE GRADUATE spoke for many of it's generation.. to follow your dreams not societies dreams for you. (You know, the girl... not plastics) I chose one movie that speaks for me.
FIGHT CLUB. I reject how society defines me. I will not be happy or free if I try to do what I want your way. Life is not a game, it is my future.
Two other movies this year back it up. AMERICAN BEAUTY And BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. I am only desirable as myself. That successfully being someone else is not freedom. That if I play the game their way, I will lose.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, directed by Spike Jonze, staring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and John Malkovich, is not a straight forward movie. It does not preach. It speaks. The reward for listening is cinematic brilliance.
Craig Schwartz (played by Cusack) is a gifted street puppeteer who despite his obvious talents continually comes up empty handed. His wife Lotte (Played by Diaz) is so locked into her job at a pet store that she literally brings her work home with her. They have no passion, no escape, and no future.
They decide that Craig must find work and he does as a filing clerk for a surreal meaningless business located on the seventh and a half floor of a faceless office building. At his orientation, he immediately falls for Maxine (played by Catherine Keener) to the point of obsession. He wants her to love him. She doesn't even know he exists.
Rejected and frustrated, he finds a way out of the tedium of the job and into a tunnel that leads to happiness. Or at least it leads into John Malkovich's head where the tunnel slider is allowed to stay for fifteen minutes then is dropped out next to the New Jersey turn pike ready to go again. Craig is so happy by what he has found that he tells Maxine in an attempt to win her love. She sees dollars signs and not creative invention, but at least now she needs him so he sells out to it. This is where the film really takes off and Craig gets deeper and deeper entrapped by his success until finally... well I don't want to give away the end.
The film is a sad comedic fable. Maxine is a symbol of corporate success. He so desperately wants her. He believes if he loves her enough she will love him back. If he gives her everything, then she will respect him. She never does. She just uses him. Because when Craig is Malkovich, he is a completion of that corporate success.
The performances in the film are remarkable. Malkovich especially. His performance is perfect. It is unassuming, charismatic, and personal. It holds the picture together when too much symbolism could've bogged it down. Keener precisely plays the cold hearted bitch that attracts you even as you hate her. Diaz boldly lets it go, melting into the part of the success obsessed wife. Her husband's needs have always been secondary to her love for success. Cusack is the movie. He breaks your heart. The film works because Cusack does not play this as a comedy. He is real. You are him. And by the end you hate him for what he has become and cry for him for being there.
For his feature film directorial debut, Spike Jonze proves he is able to bring his qwerkyness to the big screen and hold our attention. A daring first film, its execution promises us a filmmaker with the kind of unique vision that masters of the art form excel at. Terry Gilliam, Nicholas Roeg, the Coen brothers could soon have a new contemporary.
Which doesn't mean everyone will like it. This is a crazy movie that many people will not get. It is much like BRAZIL in it's surreal schizophrenia making it less accessible to digest. And if you get lost... well, one might find it boring. But for those of you with an open mind for an unusual trip, this movie speaks clearly. Find it. See it. It is currently in my top three of an insanely good film year.
Not surprisingly, I've said too much.
Consider This.. Segue Zagnut
