Being John Malkovich

1999

Action / Comedy / Drama / Fantasy

114
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 87% · 133 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 87% · 250K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.7/10 10 367819 367.8K

witch sexual identity individual secret love transvestism identity

Plot summary

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

Director

Spike Jonze Photo
Spike Jonze

Top cast

Winona Ryder Photo
Winona Ryder as Herself
Brad Pitt Photo
Brad Pitt as Brad Pitt
Mariah O'Brien Photo
Mariah O'Brien as Girl Creeped Out by Malkovich
Cameron Diaz Photo
Cameron Diaz as Lotte Schwartz
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
815.47 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 53 min
Seeds 4
1.65 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 53 min
Seeds 41

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Xstal 8 / 10

'Consciousness is a terrible curse'...

... but without it you'd be unconscious or you wouldn't be you, or are you, you? Exploring identity, appearance, choice and fame in the most original and entertaining of ways, this esoterically amusing vision of what makes us who we are manages to keep you engaged and amused while encouraging a little self reflection upon completion - that is if it is you doing the reflecting, pulling your own strings, grinding your own organ, dancing to your own tune.
Reviewed by AlsExGal 9 / 10

Three who deserved one another

I give my nine points for originality and the quality of production though, not the likeability of the characters. John Cusack and Cameron Diaz play Craig and Lotte Schwartz, a married couple that are going through the motions and don't seem to realize it. Cameron Diaz is made up to be so dowdy looking that she is initially not even recognizable. They live in a basement apartment crowded with animals (Lotte is an animal lover who works at a pet shop). Craig is a puppeteer who cannot find work in his chosen field and even gets beat up on the street for staging what one beefy dad thinks is a sacrilegious puppet show.At the suggestion of his wife, Craig goes looking for a regular job, and due to his fast hands he gets a job as a file clerk at LesterCorp. There he meets Maxine, a pretty but sociopathic young woman who, fortunately for society, seems to have no violent impulses, because if she did believe me she would follow them. Craig falls for her. Lotte falls for her. And they both make a play for her simultaneously when she comes over for dinner one night. She rejects them both.Maxine made it clear from the beginning she considered Craig a pathetic loser, but she needs him to exploit something that Craig discovered - a door that leads to a portal in which anybody who enters gets to "become" John Malkovich for fifteen minutes. At the end of the fifteen minutes the person is spit out on the side of the road at the entry to the New Jersey Turnpike. As a team they reopen Lestercorp at night and charge people 200 dollars apiece to "become John Malkovich". Neither of them knows what this portal is doing there behind a file cabinet and why it leads to Malkovich, but they initially don't care past its monetary value.It is part drama, part comedy, and even part horror and completely weird. And what the portal is doing there is all wrapped up in Dr. Lester, owner of Lestercorp, who is the only likeable character in the film, and even he has more than a bit of a Dr. Frankenstein/God complex.Also featuring Mary Kay Place as the object of Dr. Lester's lust who has convinced him he has a terrible speech impediment - he does not, John Malkovich as himself, and Charlie Sheen as himself and Malkovich's friend. It is great seeing Charlie Sheen when he was still healthy.Very highly recommended. But the plot is so weird you just have to let go of your reason and go with it.
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