BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

title: BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
year: 1999
cast: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich
rating: ***

While this film remains creatively weird the whole way through, it's only the first half that works effectively. John Cusack, as an unsuccessful puppeteer hired to work on floor 7 1/2 of a mysterious building where the ceilings are very low, discovers a portal leading to the brain of John Malkovich, allowing anyone who enters a fifteen minute tour through the actor's eyes. It's when Cusack, in lust with his fellow employee and married to a sweet-natured scientist, becoming pawn of a love triangle in which Malkovich's body is a sexual vessel, that the intriguing mind-trip becomes a bit too convoluted. Yet it is all very unique... And the casting of Charlie Sheen as Malkovich's buddy/voice of reason is very timely, and more ironic now than ever. But in a nutshell, the half-floor has a lot more uncovered weird potential than being inside the actor's body.