Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, both making their feature film debut. The film stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, with John Malkovich and Charlie Sheen as themselves. The film follows a puppeteer who finds a portal that leads into Malkovich's mind.

Released by USA Films, the film was nominated in three categories at the 72nd Academy Awards: Best Director for Jonze, Best Original Screenplay for Kaufman, and Best Supporting Actress for Keener.

Plot
Craig Schwartz is an unemployed puppeteer in a forlorn marriage with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte. After being hired as a file clerk for LesterCorp, on the strange Floor $7 1/2$ low-ceiling offices of the Mertin-Flemmer Building in New York City, he develops an attraction to his coworker Maxine Lund, who does not return his affections. Craig discovers and enters a small door hidden behind a filing cabinet, and crawls down a tunnel. Suddenly he is quickly drawn into the opposite end of the tunnel, and finds himself in the mind of actor John Malkovich.

Craig is able to observe and sense whatever Malkovich does for fifteen minutes before he is ejected and dropped into a ditch near the New Jersey Turnpike. He reveals the portal to Maxine, who sees the profit in it, and they let others use it for $200 a turn.

Lotte becomes obsessed with the experience, which allows her to live out her transgender desires. She also becomes attracted to Maxine when she is experiencing Malkovich, and Maxine and Malkovich begin a sexual relationship with Lotte inside Malkovich's head. Craig, forsaken by both women, binds and gags Lotte and locks her in a cage with her pet chimpanzee, then enters Malkovich's mind and has sex with Maxine.

Soon Craig, with his expert puppeteer skills, discovers that he is able to control Malkovich's actions while in his head. This causes the actor to feel paranoid that he is being controlled by someone else. After Malkovich consults with his friend Charlie Sheen, Malkovich trails Maxine to the Mertin-Flemmer building, where he himself tries the portal into his own head. He finds himself in a world where everyone has his face and they only say "Malkovich." He is then ejected and meets Craig by the turnpike. Malkovich demands that the portal be closed, but Craig refuses.

After escaping with the help of her chimpanzee, Lotte tells Maxine it was Craig having sex with her while inside Malkovich. Maxine is annoyed but accepts it, because she enjoyed the experience. Seeking help, Lotte finds Lester, who reveals himself to be Captain Mertin, the original founder of LesterCorp. Lester is aware of the portal, and explains that the person who is connected to the portal becomes "ripe" for permanent occupation by others on the eve of their 44th birthday. However, when the host turns 44, the portal moves to its next host, an unborn child.

Entering the portal during this brief window of "ripeness" can greatly increase one's lifespan and allow them to eventually move on to another host. However, if one enters the portal shortly after the window, they will become permanently trapped within the next host's unborn mind. Lester, who has been using the portal to prolong his life, reveals his plan to use Malkovich when "ripe" as the host for him and several of his elderly friends. Offered the chance to join Lester's group, Lotte warns him that Craig currently has control of Malkovich.

Craig finds he is able to remain in Malkovich indefinitely. He spends the next eight months in Malkovich's body and uses his skills to turn Malkovich into a world-class puppeteer. He marries Maxine, and learns that she is pregnant as their relationship grows distant.

As Malkovich's 44th birthday approaches, Lester and his friends cut a deal with Maxine and fake her kidnapping. They call Craig and threaten to kill her if Craig does not leave Malkovich. Lotte loses hope and attempts to kill Maxine, but they fall through the portal and into Malkovich's shame-ridden subconscious. Both are ejected at the turnpike, where Maxine reveals that she conceived when Lotte was inside Malkovich's body, and she kept the child because it is "theirs". The revelation cements their love for each other.

Still believing Maxine is in danger, Craig agrees to leave Malkovich's body. Lester and his friends then enter the portal and take control of Malkovich. Discovering that Lotte and Maxine are together again, Craig decides to enter the portal to become Malkovich and regain Maxine; however, he has unknowingly missed the deadline for getting into Malkovich.

Seven years later, an aging Malkovich, containing the collective mind of Lester and his friends, reveals to Sheen a plan to prolong their lives via Maxine's daughter Emily, within whom Craig is now permanently trapped. Through Emily's eyes Craig is forced to watch Maxine and Lotte living happily together as he futilely pleads that Emily look away.

Development
Kaufman's idea of Being John Malkovich originated simply as "a story about a man who falls in love with someone who is not his wife." Gradually he added further elements to the story which he found entertaining, such as floor $7 1/2$ of the Mertin Flemmer building; among his first ideas, Malkovich was "nowhere to be seen". He wrote the script on spec in 1994 and though it was widely read by production company and film studio executives, all turned it down. Hoping to find a producer, Kaufman sent the script to Francis Ford Coppola, who passed it on to his then-son-in-law Spike Jonze.

Jonze first read the script in 1996 and had agreed to direct the film by 1997. Jonze brought the script to Propaganda Films, which agreed to produce the film in partnership with production company Single Cell Pictures. Single Cell producers Michael Stipe and Sandy Stern pitched the film to numerous studios, including New Line Cinema, who dropped the project after chairman Robert Shaye asked: "Why the must can't it be Being Tom Cruise?". Jonze revealed in a September 2013 interview that Malkovich asked him the same question during their first meeting and also relayed Malkovich's attitude after filming commenced:

"Either the movie's a bomb and it's got not only my name above the title but my name in the title, so I'm good that way; or it does well and I'm just forever associated with this character."

Jonze explained in the same interview that he didn't realize how brave Malkovich's performance in the film was.

With a budget of $10 million, principal photography of Being John Malkovich began on July 20, 1998, and continued through August. Filming took place primarily in Los Angeles; specific locations included the University of Southern California campus and the Observation Bar on board the RMS Queen Mary.

The puppets in the film were created by Kamela Portuges and Images in Motion. Phillip Huber animated the puppets.

Casting
Diaz's make-up artist Gucci Westman described styling Diaz in the role as "a challenge, to make her look homely." The script included minimal physical descriptions of characters, and thus when Diaz took up the role she did not know that "people weren't going to recognize me."

Cusack read the film's script after he had asked his agent to present him with the "craziest, most unproduceable script you can find." Impressed with the script, he asked his agent to follow its progress and book him an audition, with which he won the role.

Keener cited Being John Malkovich as an instance of her taking up a role based on the director's previous work. She had heard about Jonze's experience with music videos and took up the part of Maxine although she initially disliked the character and did not feel that she was right for the part. She was subsequently nominated for an Oscar.

Kaufman said that there was never another actor in Malkovich's place in the script: "The screenplay was always "Being John Malkovich", even before I had any expectation that John Malkovich would even read the script." He chose Malkovich because he believed there to be "an enigmatic quality about him that works", though Malkovich was partly chosen because of the sound of his name in repetition. Kaufman explained that "When we were thinking of alternatives, we found that a lot of them weren't fun to say." Jonze's then-father-in-law Francis Ford Coppola was able to contact Malkovich, and Jonze flew with producer Sandy Stern to Malkovich's home in France. Stern said that Malkovich was "half intrigued and half horrified" when he first read the script, but he eventually agreed to star in the film.

Spike Jonze makes a cameo appearance as Derek Mantini's assistant; Mantini is billed in the story as the greatest puppeteer in the history of the world and arouses Schwartz's envy. Brad Pitt also has a half-second-long cameo, as a miffed star in the documentary on Malkovich's career, who seems to be on the verge of saying something before the shot ends. Sean Penn appears as himself, a fan of Malkovich's puppeteer work. Film director David Fincher makes an uncredited appearance as Christopher Bing in the American Arts & Culture pseudo-documentary on John Malkovich. Winona Ryder, Andy Dick, and the members of Hanson can be seen in the audience of a Malkovich puppet show.

Theatrical release
Being John Malkovich was given limited release in the United States theatres on October 22, 1999, and opened across 25 screens. On its opening weekend, the film grossed US$637,731 across 25 screens with a per-screen average of $25,495. It expanded to another 150 screens the following week, bringing in $1.9 million with a per-screen average of $10,857. In its third week, the film's release widened to 467 locations and grossed $2.4 million, averaging a lower $5,041 per screen with a cumulative gross of $6.1 million. It moved into a wide release the next week, expanding to 591 screens, and grossed $1.9 million with a 20% drop in ticket sales. Its fifth week brought in $2.2 million with a 17% increase in ticket sales, which dropped a further 33% the following week despite further expansion to 624 screens. It finished its theatrical run after 26 weeks with a total gross of $22,863,596.

The film opened in the United Kingdom in March 2000, earning £296,282 in its debut week and closing after fifteen weeks with a total gross of £1,098,927. In France, the film opened in December 1999 with a gross of US$546,000 from 94 venues and went on to further success due to positive reviews and word of mouth. It grossed $205,100 from 109 screens on its opening weekend in Italy and ticket sales dropped by 37% the following week with a cumulative gross of $480,000 from 82 screens. Its German release brought in a total of $243,071. Being John Malkovich had a total foreign gross of $9,523,455, combined with its domestic gross to give an international total of over $32 million.

Home media
Being John Malkovich was initially released in 2000 on VHS, both as a regular edition and a limited edition collector's set, and on DVD, with special features including a theatrical trailer, TV spots, cast and crew biographies, the director's photo album and featurettes on floor 7½ and puppeteering. A special edition DVD, released later the same year, included the aforementioned features, an interview with Jonze and two behind-the-scenes featurettes. It was released on HD DVD in 2008. The Criterion Collection released a special edition of the film on Blu-ray and DVD in 2012.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 133 reviews, with an average rating of 8.13/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Being John Malkovich is both funny and smart, featuring a highly original script." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 90 out of 100, based on 36 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." The film ranked 441st on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest films of all time.

In his review, Roger Ebert awarded the film a full four stars; he would later name it the best film of 1999. His comments of praise included: "Rare is the movie where the last half hour surprises you just as much as the first, and in ways you're not expecting. The movie has ideas enough for half a dozen films, but Jonze and his cast handle them so surely that we never feel hard-pressed; we're enchanted by one development after the next" and he also felt that "Either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains." Another top critic Peter Rainer, writing for New York, commented that "dazzlingly singular movies aren't often this much fun" in his review, and Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, called it "the most excitingly original movie of the year."

Malkovich's performance in Being John Malkovich is ranked number 90 on Premiere's "100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time".