Being John Malkovich (1999)
90%RT Audience Score: 87%
Awards & Nominations: Nominated for 3 Oscars
48 wins & 79 nominations total
Smart, funny, and highly original, Being John Malkovich supports its wild premise with skillful direction and a stellar ensemble cast.
Being John Malkovich” is like a wild ride through a twisted carnival of the mind. It’s like a funhouse mirror that distorts reality and makes you question everything you thought you knew. John Cusack and Cameron Diaz are hilarious as a couple who stumble upon a portal into John Malkovich’s brain, and Malkovich himself gives a surprisingly nuanced performance as a version of himself. The film is weird, wacky, and wonderful, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for something truly unique and mind-bending, give it a try. Just don’t be surprised if you come out feeling a little bit like you’ve been through the wringer.
Production Company(ies)
AMLF The Saul Zaentz Company,
Distributor
USA Films
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
RMS Queen Mary – 1126 Queens Highway, Long Beach, California, USA
MPAA / Certificate
Rated R for language and sexuality
Year of Release
1999
-
Color:Color
-
Sound mix:Dolby Digital
-
Aspect ratio:1.85 : 1
-
Runtime:1h 52m
-
Language(s):English
-
Country of origin:United States
-
Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Oct 29, 1999 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 27, 2009
Genre(s)
Comedy
Keyword(s)
starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place, John Malkovich, directed by Spike Jonze, written by Charlie Kaufman, comedy, R rating, box office gross $22.9M, reviewed by Adam Kempenaar, David Germain, Chris Chang, Candice Frederick, Keith Staskiewicz, David Rooney, Tom Meek, Leigh Paatsch, Rob Aldam, Armond White, Kaleem Aftab, original language English, producer Steve Golin, Vincent Landay, Sandy Stern, Michael Stipe, Dolby Stereo, Dolby Digital, Dolby A, Surround, Dolby SR, aspect ratio Flat (1.85:1), Craig Schwartz, Lotte Schwartz, Maxine Lund, Dr Lester, Floris, John Horatio Malkovich
Worldwide gross: $23,106,667
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $41,477,112
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,424
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 4,523,131
US/Canada gross: $22,863,596
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $41,040,792
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,155
US/Canada opening weekend: $637,721
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $1,144,727
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,262
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): $13,000,000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): $23,335,362
Production budget ranking: 1,284
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): $12,566,093
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): $5,575,656
ROI to date (est.): 16%
ROI ranking: 1,318
Cameron Diaz – Lotte Schwartz
Catherine Keener – Maxine Lund
Orson Bean – Dr. Lester
Mary Kay Place – Floris
John Malkovich – John Horatio Malkovich
Director(s)
Spike Jonze
Writer(s)
Charlie Kaufman
Producer(s)
Steve Golin, Vincent Landay, Sandy Stern, Michael Stipe
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
Nominated for 3 Oscars
48 wins & 79 nominations total
Academy Awards
Oscar Nominees
All Critics (134) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (126) | Rotten (8)
Kaufman and Jonze steer us through a truly twisted psychological and existential swamp.
August 30, 2019 | Rating: 4.5/5
Adam Kempenaar
Filmspotting
TOP CRITIC
Fabulously funny and delightfully disturbed, “Being John Malkovich” is the ultimate voyeur movie, a dark and at times malevolent take on what it’s like to be in someone else’s skull, looking out.
June 12, 2018
David Germain
Associated Press
TOP CRITIC
The beauty of the film is the way it elevates John Malkovich from an actor to an axiom.
March 22, 2018
Chris Chang
Film Comment Magazine
TOP CRITIC
Though Being John Malkovich was deliciously original and delivers an underrated performance by John Cusack, the ending was a bit disappointing.
September 11, 2017 | Rating: B+
Candice Frederick
Reel Talk Online
TOP CRITIC
May 12, 2012 | Rating: A
Keith Staskiewicz
Entertainment Weekly
TOP CRITIC
Devilishly inventive and so far out there it’s almost off the scale.
June 17, 2008
David Rooney
Variety
TOP CRITIC
The very meta tale stars and is about thespian and sometime Cambridge resident John Malkovich and the puppeteer (John Cusack) who discovers a portal into his brain.
September 10, 2020 | Rating: 2.5/4
Tom Meek
Cambridge Day
The intense invention and creativity at work in this extraordinary movie is overwhelming.
June 9, 2020 | Rating: 4/5
Leigh Paatsch
Herald Sun (Australia)
Outlandish, hilarious and exceedingly clever.
August 9, 2019
Rob Aldam
Backseat Mafia
For two hours, it works like the best music videos: making high-concept philosophies graspable, marvelous and fun.
April 30, 2019
Armond White
New York Press
What could have developed into a one-gag film becomes a gender-bending extravaganza with a crazy network of love triangles… The real magic of Being John Malkovich is that it never fails to surprise.
April 13, 2019 | Rating: 5/5
Kaleem Aftab
The List
Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s hallucinatory meditation on human embodiment, celebrity, and, uh, John Malkovich remains the ultimate marriage of ’90s music-video aesthetics and absurdist narrative storytelling.
March 26, 2019
Lindsay Zoladz
The Ringer…
Plot
Puppeteer Craig Schwartz and animal lover and pet store clerk Lotte Schwartz are just going through the motions of their marriage. Despite not being able to earn a living solely through puppeteering, Craig loves his profession as it allows him to inhabit the skin of others. He begins to take the ability to inhabit the skin of others to the next level when he is forced to take a job as a file clerk for the off-kilter LesterCorp, located on the five-foot tall 7½ floor of a Manhattan office building. Behind one of the filing cabinets in his work area, Craig finds a hidden door which he learns is a portal into the mind of John Malkovich, the visit through the portal which lasts fifteen minutes after which the person is spit into a ditch next to the New Jersey Turnpike. Craig is fascinated by the meaning of life associated with this finding. Lotte’s trips through the portal make her evaluate her own self. And the confident Maxine Lund, one of Craig’s co-workers who he tells about the portal if only because he is attracted to her, thinks that it is a money making opportunity in selling trips into Malkovich’s mind after office hours for $200 a visit. Craig, Lotte and Maxine begin to understand that anyone entering the portal has the ability to control Malkovich’s mind, which also alters his entire being. This experience makes Maxine fall in love with a composite. This ability to control Malkovich’s mind begs the question of the ultimate psychedelic trip for Malkovich himself, who begins to feel that something is not right in the world as he knows it.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
John Malkovich plays an imaginary version of himself in Being John Malkovich.
Spike-Jonze.jpg
