Submitted for your approval: a woman is having relations with another woman but only as a man, a REAL man, and no cosmetic surgery was required. All that was required was crawling into a muddy room through a door witha crystal knob. While the means may seem implausable, the end result is obsession at its finest.

John Cusack (and you won't recognize him at first) plays Craig, a puppeteer who uses his talent to escape what he hates most: himself. After taking a filing job to actually earn money, he inadvertantly discovers a door that enters the mind of John Malkovich. Seriously, for about fifteen minutes. Craig immediately tells his coworker, Maxine (Catherine Keener), whom he's trying to impress, but she blows him off yet again. So he tells his wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), who actually tries it and becomes infatuated with being a man. Then it gets weirder: Maxine starts up a time-share night business with Craig using the door to Malkovich, but when Lotte meets Maxine, Maxine arranges to meet with John Malkovich in person at the exact time Lotte enters the door to BE Malkovich. All this leaves Craig with no wife, no mistress, and no clue. Then a plan begins to form...

The existential mechanics behind a film such as this are, to say the least, twisted. Fortunately, no one has time to question the method because they're too busy exploiting it for money or personal gratification. The love/hate triangle of Craig, Lotte, and Maxine is both repelling, inviting, and imminently fun to watch. You can be sure that  characters in Quentin Tarantino's next movie will be talking about this one: "So if you could be any guy for fifteen minutes just to get with whoever they're banging, you wouldn't be Michael Douglas?"

Story and characters aside, what really pushes this high-concept, low-budget film over the top is John Malkovich playing himself and spoofing himself besides. Malkovich is easily identifiable as himself and as the character of Craig using Malkovich, so much so that we just accept that Malkovich is just this puppet that anyone can use. Fortunately, he also slimes himself up enough so that just when we start to feel sorry for him we can dismiss his personal feelings and get back to the real story. Resisting the opportunity for upstaging and settling for playing a plot device couldn't have been easy for Mr. Malkovich, especially when when his name is most of the title. 

All in all, Being John Malkovich is the kind of movie that the term "independant film" touts as a shining example, a low-cost production with high ideals that doesn't require Industrial Lights & Magic to get its point across. Okay, maybe a few effects, but no explosions. Then again, Amercian Beauty can say the same thing, but it doesn't have that trademark independant "dark and scratchy," film look, now, does it?

(3.5 out of 4)