Manipulation in Wonderland
Being John Malkovich
Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener
Screening in selected cinemas
Review by Jonathan Singer
Being John Malkovich has been categorised as comedy. I'm not sure about this; the film is darkly comic, but also deadly serious.
The film's theme is manipulation, and its causes and consequences. Its Alice-in-Wonderland-like portal into John Malkovich (who plays himself) carries the theme.
Craig (John Cusack) is a gifted puppeteer (the puppetry alone makes seeing the film worthwhile), but New York ignores his talent. He starts a job as a filing clerk.
At his orientation he meets Maxine (Catherine Keener), with whom he becomes obsessed. Maxine, however, develops an interest in Craig's wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz) — at least when Lotte is inside Malkovich.
Maxine is apparently the most manipulative of the three. She avows that only those who go for what they want have a chance of getting it. Yet she takes from people only what they want to give.
In the experience of being John Malkovich, Lotte gains the capacity to express her sexuality.
Craig initially hopes for nothing more than to able to pursue his work as a puppeteer; he feels that this is a means to be inside someone else. His power becomes manipulation, which he uses — thereby using others — to try to get what he wants.
Craig's alienation — the separation of what he could be from what he is — causes this turn. Unfortunately, the film presents this as principally a psychological, rather than social, issue.
Being John Malkovich is an unusually (and unusually well) put together and thought-provoking film. Try to see it before its season finishes.