Being John Malkovich (1999)

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Being John Malkovich Movie Review

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 fantasy comedy film directed by Spike Jonze and starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener. It is such a boring, frankly stupid movie.

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“There is truth, and there are lies, and art always tells the truth.

Even when it’s lying“

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This is the kind of weird movie that I strongly dislike. Everything here is weird just for the sake of being weird. But it is never positively weird, but odd and ridiculous. The film isn’t awful as it had a somewhat interesting first act with a couple of interesting scenes, but everything else that came after it is so annoying and it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Craig is boring as a protagonist. Maxine is somewhat better, but even she becomes annoying later on. The only thing I liked about her is her eccentric lifestyle with animals. And as for Lotte, she is so annoying and such an awful, clearly bad person that I wanted to punch her in her face during the entire running time.

The acting is okay and it is evidently one of the only good things about this movie. Catherine Keener is pretty good as is John Cusack, but it is Cameron Diaz who really surprised me with her performance. I barely even recognized her with her weird looks and I really admire her work here as it is pretty solid for an usually mediocre actress.

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Being John Malkovich is awfully boring. It isn’t a long movie, but it feels like one as its pacing is too slow and nothing really interesting or pleasant happens whatsoever. The entire madness and sexual aspects to the plot are so annoying as I hate such things. But it’s just that the film is such a mishmash of different ideas with not one of them working.

It is badly directed and awfully edited and its imagery is not as great. There is some memorable imagery here, but most of it is forgettable. Being John Malkovich is original, but it is original in a negative way which means that it is not to be admired. I get annoyed when people confuse those two things. The dialogue is also annoying and most of the characters are either annoying or distinctly unlikable.

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And the film started off in a fine manner, but quickly turned into disaster. It is one of those films where each and every plot point is even worse than the previous one. It is a pointless movie with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It garnered three Oscar nominations and of course it did not deserve any of it, not to mention that it did not deserve all of the critical praise it received. It is regarded as one of the best films of 1999, but it is to me the very worst film of that year that I’ve seen thus far.