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Jul 06, 2012 Issue #41 - Yeasayer By Hays Davis

“Consciousness is a terrible curse,” Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) tells his wife’s pet chimp at the start of 1999’s Being John Malkovich. Craig is a struggling puppeteer who is more nimble at his craft than he is at finding an audience. At his wife Lotte’s (a de-glamorized Cameron Diaz) suggestion, he breaks down and gets a job as a file clerk, unwittingly leaving any sense of convention behind.

Director Spike Jonze is at his best with Charlie Kaufman’s wonderfully mind-warping story of Craig’s discovery of a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich. After developing a longing for Maxine (Catherine Keener), a woman working on his floor, Craig confides in her, as well as in Lotte, about the hidden door he discovered behind a file cabinet. When Maxine begins sleeping with Malkovich, she sees a consciousness-visiting Lotte through the actor’s eyes and falls for her, much to the smitten Craig’s dismay.

While Maxine is selling tickets to the public for the experience of being John Malkovich, one of the movie’s greatest moments occurs when Malkovich finds out and chooses to enter his own mind. This trip down the rabbit hole is as mind-bogglingly entertaining as ever in this new Criterion Collection version. It comes with a slew of brand-new extras, including an audio commentary featuring Jonze and friend/fellow filmmaker Michel Gondry, a behind-the-scenes documentary by Lance Bangs, and a conversation between Malkovich and comedian/writer John Hodgman. (www.criterion.com)

Author rating: 8/10