BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
by Spike Jonze

Film review by Ken Weavers

This film explores the idea of one person being able to live in the mind of another, as if the hypothesis behind the maxim "if I could, I wouldn’t be in your shoes" could be made actual. Cinematically, of course, there is no problem with setting up such a scenario, with a few decent special effects involving some kind of ill-understood hinterland through which souls may migrate, and actors behaving strangely when these phenomena manifest. However, the film maker has to make a distinct choice: should he play it seriously, and consider the profound philosophical implications for people involved in such a fantastic world, or should he regard the whole thing as a scenario for making lots of jokes on the theme, and on the way lose any aspirations for plausibility of reaction or depth of character? Spike Jonze has made his choice, and one suspects the serious approach did not even enter his head.

What we have then is a cinematic descendant of earlier Hollywood tales of whimsical fantasy, where earnestness is considered definitely suspect, and where, at every turn, the silly option is taken in preference to the sensible one. It begins as a mildly amusing surreal fantasy: a puppeteer finds a job on a floor half way between two others, where anyone but a midget has constantly to bow his head. Here he finds by chance the secret ‘portal’ into the mind of another person, who happens to be the actor John Malkovich. From then on matters drift into deeply black but obvious humour, centred around the cynical way in which everybody exploits this discovery. Seen as an allegorical critique of consumerism and capitalism, it might be said to work, but only by taking these ideas to their extremes. Subtlety is conspicuous by its absence.

Personally, I found the film’s underlying nihilism, in its absolute refusal to take matters like death and loss of personal volition soberly, disturbing. There are no good characters in this film. People are either stupid, cunning, or even more cunning, and on this one-dimensional scale, even John Malkovich, playing himself, fits neatly. The would-be cleverest of all, the leading lady Maxine, expresses the ethos of the film very well when she says that there are two types of people – those who try to get what they want, and those who don’t – and she has no time for the boring members of the latter group. So in this world where everyone is out for what they can get, whether it’s money or sex or extreme longevity, we have to watch with jaded interest to see who comes out on top in the end. Actually, I’ve already forgotten.