Being John Malkovich(1999)
USA Films Oct 29, 1999
A puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of movie star John Malkovich.
Release Details
Original Release | Oct 29, 1999 | Moderate
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Box Office Results
Results
$637,721
$22,863,596
$243,506
$23,109,315
Current Showtimes
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- Thu Sep 3
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Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Summaries
Plot Summary
- Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is an unemployed puppeteer in a forlorn marriage with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz). Schwartz spends most of his time in his workshops working on new scripts for his puppet shows and creating sets for the same. Lotte pushes Schwartz to get a full-time job until he starts making steady money from his puppet shows. Schwartz continues to conduct street shows, but the real money follows celebrity puppeteers who conduct shows with huge puppets hanging from cranes down the side of a bridge, which also garners media attention.Schwartz sees an ad in the newspapers from Lester Crop looking for a man with fast fingers for a filing clerk job. Gaining a file clerk job through Dr. Lester (Orson Bean) at Lester Corp, in the strange Floor 7½ low-ceiling offices of the Mertin Flemmer Building in New York City, he develops an attraction to his co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener), who does not return his affections. The only way to enter the office is to stop the lift between the 7th and 8th floor and pry the doors open with a crowbar. Floris (Mary Kay Place) is the office secretary and has a hearing defect, but she has Dr Lester convinced that he is the one with a speech impediment. Lester says that the 7 ½ floor was created by the creator of the building as a working space for dwarf people. Since the rent and the overheads of this low ceiling floor were much lesser, it was gradually taken over by corporate.Maxine finally agrees to go on a dinner with Schwartz. Despite all sorts of angels, Maxine is clear that she will never sleep with Schwartz. Schwartz was tempted towards Maxine as he could not spend time at home with all of Lotte's pets and hearing about their health problems.Lester claims that he is 105 years old and that the secret to his long life is carrot juice. Schwartz discovers a small door behind a filing cabinet from which he enters into a long dark cave. The door shuts behind him and Schwartz is propelled forward by a gush of wind that takes him to a source of light at the end of the tunnel. Schwartz finds himself in the mind of actor John Malkovich, which he realizes when John stands in front of a mirror. Schwartz 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. Schwartz reveals the portal to Maxine, and they decide to let others use it at $200 a turn.Schwartz tells Lotte, who becomes obsessed with the experience, allowing her to live out her transgender desires. She and Craig visit Dr. Lester's home, where Lotte finds a room filled with Malkovich memorabilia. Maxine arranges a date with Malkovich while he is inhabited by Lotte, who becomes smitten with Maxine. She reciprocates, but only when Lotte is inside Malkovich; Maxine manipulates him into having sex with her while Lotte is in his mind.Schwartz, forsaken by both women, locks up Lotte in a cage and forces her to set up another tryst with Maxine. Unknown to Maxine, he then enters into Malkovich's mind and has a sexual encounter with Maxine. Drawing on his puppeteer profession, Schwartz discovers that he is able to control Malkovich's actions while in his head, causing the actor to become paranoid. After consulting with his friend Charlie Sheen, Malkovich trails Maxine to the Mertin Flemmer building, where he finds and tries the portal and is placed in a world where everyone looks like him and can only say "Malkovich". He is ejected and meets Schwartz by the turnpike, and angrily demands that the portal be closed, to which Schwartz refuses.Craig refuses. Lotte is freed by her pet chimpanzee and warns Maxine that Craig is inhabiting Malkovich, but Maxine is attracted to Craig's ability to control him.Lotte confronts Dr. Lester, who reveals that he is in fact Captain Mertin, who, having discovered the portal to a "vessel body" in the late 1800s, erected the Mertin-Flemmer building to conceal it. He has obtained immortality by moving from one body to the next, which becomes "ripe" on the host's 44th birthday, allowing him to take possession.If he were to enter the portal past midnight on that day, he would instead be trapped in the next newborn vessel, helpless inside the new host's mind. This time, Lester has invited a group of friends to join him in occupying Malkovich once he turns 44, and Lotte warns them that Craig has taken control.Meanwhile, Schwartz finds he is able to remain in Malkovich indefinitely. He spends the next eight months in Malkovich's body and through his control, turns Malkovich into a world-famous puppeteer, revitalizing puppetry. Malkovich also gets married to Maxine and learns that she is pregnant, as their relationship grows distant. Malkovich's 44th birthday approaches so Dr. Lester and his friends capture Maxine, threatening to kill her if Schwartz does not leave. Lotte loses hope and attempts to kill Maxine, but they end up at the turnpike after falling through the portal and Malkovich's shame-ridden subconscious. Maxine reveals that she conceived when Lotte was inside Malkovich's body and kept the child because it is theirs. The revelation cements their love for each other.Eventually, Schwartz leaves Malkovich's body voluntarily, hoping to win Maxine back. Malkovich finds that he has regained control of himself, but his joy is cut short as moments later Dr. Lester and his friends enter the portal. Schwartz, discovering that Lotte and Maxine are together again, enters the portal in an attempt to become Malkovich and regain Maxine, but is too late and finds himself in the next host: Emily, the baby of Maxine.Schwartz is permanently imprisoned and must now spend the next 40 years watching Maxine and Lotte live happily ever after through Emily's eyes. Later, an aging Malkovich, under the collective mind of Dr. Lester and his friends, reveals to a now aged Sheen a plan to prolong their lives through Emily.
Storyline
- John Malkovich . 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. — Huggo Street entertainer Craig Schwartz doesn't seem to have much luck somehow always managing to offend someone - which occasionally leads to a black eye. He eventually gets a job as a file clerk for a company located in an office tower on Floor 7½ - where the ceilings are only 5½ feet high. No one seems to think the arrangement is odd and Craig just gets on with his work. Things take a shift into the bizarre when Craig moves a filing cabinet behind which he finds a tunnel that leads him to see through the eyes of actor John Malkovich . For Craig and the others who become aware of the portal, it represents both risks and opportunities. — garykmcd One day filing clerk Craig Schwartz (Cusack) accidentally discovers a door at his job, containing a portal into the mind of character actor John Malkovich (played by Malkovich himself). For 15 minutes, he experiences the ultimate head trip - He is John Malkovich. With his beautiful office mate Maxine (Keener) and his pet-obsessed wife (Diaz), they hatch a plan to let others into John's brain for just $200 a trip. Craig, a puppeteer, takes a filing job in a low-ceilinged office in Manhattan. Although married to the slightly askew Lotte, he hits on a colleague, the sexually frank Maxine. She's bored but snaps awake when he finds a portal leading inside John Malkovich: for 15 minutes you see, hear, and feel whatever JM is doing, then you fall out by the New Jersey Turnpike. Maxine makes it commercial, selling trips for $200; also, she's more interested in Lotte than in Craig, but only when Lotte is inside JM. JM finds out what's going on and tries to stop it, but Craig sees the portal as his road to Maxine and to success as a puppeteer. Meanwhile, Lotte discovers others interested in the portal. —
