By: Max Jasper

While I was a production assistant on “Small Town Girl” over the summer, I asked the director of the film, Bill Cooper, what his favorite movie of all time was. Without hesitation, he answered, “Being John Malkovich.”

I later learned that “Malkovich” was written by Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter who wrote my favorite film of all time, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” So, “Malkovich” was high on my watchlist. And boy, it didn’t disappoint.

Similar to “Eternal Sunshine,” Kaufman is able to convince the audience of the absurd, with the portal into Malkovich’s mind. From the first moment Craig (John Cusack) enters the small doorway in his office, the audience is able to fully get on board with the fantastical element that a portal exists on the seven-and-a-half floor of an office building into the mind of a beloved celebrity.

And on top of that, the film has terrific, unique characters whose motivations are always interesting enough to go back to.

The protagonist is a lonely puppeteer named Craig, who the audience is forced to root for in the beginning, because we only see things from his perspective. We’re able to understand that he has a crush on his mysterious co-worker, Maxine (Catherine Keener), yet we can respect the fact that he maintains a comfortable distance from her due to his relationship with his wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz).

However, once Craig informs Lotte of the portal into Malkovich’s mind, she becomes infatuated with Malkovich, feeling more comfortable in his body than she is in her own. In fact, she tells Craig that she may be transgender and considers gender reassignment surgery, before Craig ultimately shuts her down.

At first, Lotte’s response to being inside of Malkovich felt abrupt and too sudden to me. However, after doing some thinking, I realized that if I got to experience what it was like to be a celebrity, even for 15 minutes, I would probably have desires to be like them, because I’ve only ever experienced life through my own lens, not the lens of anyone else. I’d be fascinated with what it’d be like to be someone else. But would I permanently want to be someone else famous like Malkovich?

No, I wouldn’t. I’m happy with my life, and that’s what I realized when this film was over. I don’t have a desire to be somebody else, even somebody who is living my dreams, because I have goals and ambitions that only I can accomplish, and I want to be present in my own skin to achieve them. It’s a fascinating thing to think about, the idea of being somebody else, and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman absolutely knocked it out of the park with the concept. I’ll definitely be checking out some of the other films he’s written, and also reading his screenplays, because, in my opinion, he is one of the best screenwriters in the entire world.

Five stars out of five.