Unfortunate puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) barely scrapes together a living with his dark (and quite traumatic to children) street puppet shows. Meanwhile, his dowdy wife Lotte (an almost unrecognisable Cameron Diaz) spends what little they have on raising the menagerie of animals she has living in their small home.
When Craig starts a job as a filing clerk at a Manhattan firm to earn a little extra cash, he discovers a small door hidden behind a filing cabinet and a dark tunnel leading into the brain of movie star John Malkovich (playing himself).
When he tells co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) about his newfound celebrity joy ride, they form a business partnership offering jaded New Yorkers the chance to be the actor for 15 minutes at $200 a time.
This crazy, surreal comedy from director Spike Jonze is a daringly original metaphysical fantasy that still finds time to ponder the human status quo, sexual gender and identity.
Super-smart, hip and darkly subversive (the sequence where Malkovich enters his own brain portal and finds a world completely populated by images of himself is a classic), Jonze’s Kafkaesque mind trip is so far out in conservative Hollywood terms, it’s a real shock to the system.
The fact that it manages to carry its open-mouthed audience through every awesomely enigmatic turn is its greatest accomplishment.
Craig Schwartz
John Cusack Maxine
Catherine Keener Lotte Schwartz
Cameron Diaz John Malkovich
Himself Dr Lester
Orson Bean Floris
Mary Kay Place First JM Inc Customer
W Earl Brown Larry the agent
Carlos Jacott Charlie
Charlie Sheen Brad Pitt
Himself Sean Penn
Himself
Director
Spike Jonze
Video
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When he tells co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) about his newfound celebrity joy ride, they form a business partnership offering jaded New Yorkers the chance to be the actor for 15 minutes at $200 a time.
