Being John Malkovich (1999)

From the ever-so-slightly twisted mind of Charlie Kaufman comes an incredibly inventive and innovative film which was also the feature debut of director Spike Jonze, previously a director of music videos and commercials. The result is a film that still feels incredibly fresh twenty years after its initial release.

Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a puppeteer who performs on a street corner in New York City. He is married to Lotte (Cameron Diaz) who works in a pet store, due to her incredible love of all animals. In fact, her love of animals is so strong, they have a veritable menagerie of animals living with them, including a chimpanzee, a parrot, a dog, a cat, an iguana, and many, many more.

As you can probably imagine, there isn’t a lot of money in puppetry, particularly in the incredibly lifelike - and at times a little risqué - marionettes Craig builds and performs with. Lotte suggests to him he find some more stable, paid work.

Craig (John Cusack), working on one of his puppet creations.

He answers a mysterious ad in the newspaper, calling for a short-statured filing clerk. Arriving at the building, he learns the company is on floor 7 ½ (which is reached by pressing the emergency stop button in the elevator between levels 7 and 8). The ceilings are low - low overheads, as everyone says - and the staff are all a little strange.

From receptionist Floris (Mary Kay Place), who can’t seem to understand what anyone is ever saying to her, to boss Dr. Lester (Orson Bean), who speaks and acts in an incredibly cryptic way at all times.

Craig also meets co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener), with whom he becomes instantly smitten.

While trying to retrieve a file that has fallen behind a filing cabinet in his office, Craig discovers a small door that leads to a dark tunnel. Crawling through the tunnel, he discovers it is actually a portal that transports the ‘crawler’ into the mind of actor John Malkovich for fifteen minutes at a time, before spitting them back out beside the New Jersey Turnpike.

Lotte (Cameron Diaz).

Craig and Maxine quickly see the money-making potential from such a tunnel, and it isn’t long before they are selling tickets into Malkovich’s head to people who are unsatisfied with their own lives.

Everything seems to be going fine, until John Malkovich gets wind of what is going on, and shows up at their office, demanding they let him have a go. The results, of course, are at once fascinating and incredibly disturbing.

Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay is incredibly clever, with plenty of twists and turns throughout. All the characters are filled to the brim with both internal and external conflicts. I even find that each time I watch this film, I seem to notice new and different things every time, and it becomes even more incredible with each viewing, too.

Maxine (Catherine Keener).

The original score, by Carter Burwell, doesn’t have a lot to it. Music isn’t used much at all in this film, but when it is, it is near-perfect. The instrumentation is reasonably traditional throughout, but the music never overpowers the action, seeking only to support it, which it does well.

What really makes this film great, however, is the performances. Cusack and Diaz in particular are fantastic, as is Orson Bean as the eccentric Dr. Lester. All of the puppetry in the film is done by Phillip Huber who, as those who have seen the film can attest, is a genius in the truest sense of the word.

Director Spike Jonze, who has gone on to make several other equally-great films, has made a true gem here. I would definitely recommend this film if you haven’t seen it yet, and even if you have, check it out again; you never know what you might discover this time around.

8 out of 10.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

From the slightly twisted mind of Charlie Kaufman comes a film about the memories that make us who we are.

One day on a train journey he isn’t sure why he is taking, Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet), and the two start up a conversation.

Fast forward a little bit, and the two are becoming very close. In fact, things are progressing nicely as far as Joel is concerned.

Then all of a sudden, he discovers Clementine doesn’t want to see him any more. This is an incredibly jarring moment for Joel, and his life as he knows it begins to fall apart very rapidly.

He receives a card in the mail saying that Clementine has undergone a ground-breaking new procedure at the so-called Lacuna Institute – run by Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), where all memories of Joel have been erased. He is instructed not to try to contact her as this will only confuse and upset her.

After some research of his own into the Institute and the procedure, Joel decides he must undergo the same procedure, as living with memories of Clementine that he isn’t able to act on is just too damn difficult.

But getting rid of memories that in fact make him who he is proves to be more difficult than he had first thought.

Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay is absolutely incredible. There are so many intricately woven subplots and timelines going on here that it is impossible to understand everything that is going on with only one viewing of this film. In fact, having seen it myself at least six times, there is still more and more I discover with each subsequent viewing (And let me assure you, your understanding of the film will change the more times you watch it, too).

Director Michel Gondry, who also seems to specialise in films that are a little more on the surrealist side of reality, is truly in his element here as well. Although this is the only film directed by Gondry that I have seen that he did not write himself, so the tone is very different from a lot of his other projects.

The performances by both Carrey and Winslet are also superb. In my opinion, this is one of the best films Jim Carrey has done, certainly one of the best serious dramatic roles he has portrayed. The cast all seem to be well grounded in the reality of this film, and their portrayals are heart-achingly true to the reality the film creates.

Other notable cast members include Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst as Lacuna employees who turn up to run the procedure on Joel. All three of them bring their own unique skills to their roles, and the three of them work extremely well together.

As already mentioned, this film will give you plenty to think about, particularly on a repeat viewing. It is well worth taking the time to get your hands on; you will thank me for it.

Without a doubt, this is one of my favourite films of all time.

10 out of 10.