Being John Malchovich

Why You Liked 'Being John Malchovich' :

You liked this movie for the simple reason that you felt like an intellectual liking it. It's a mainstream flick masquerading as an independent film, and you ate it up. It was just weird enough that all the jocks and preps that you hate won't get it (so you can feel superior), but accessible enough for you and all your 'not quite trendy' psuedo-intellectual friends to enjoy and feel comfortable doing so. "Hey, did you see Being John Malchovich?" "Yeah, and I'm just hip enough, and yet just far enough outside of the mainstream, that I was able to appreciate its cutting edge style!"

Of course, that it had two tried and true favs in it, namely John Malchovich and John Cusack, didn't hurt either. I mean, even I thought 'boy, with both of THOSE John's in there, it's gotta have something going for it." So the star factor drew you in, and many of you, unable to admit that even actors who you like can do bad movies, refused to accept that BJM wasn't the work of genius you were told it was. The big names always get you. Once a good actor, always a good actor. Ooooooops.

Why You Shouldn't Have Liked Being John Malchovich :

I got so many breathless recommendations for this one that I thought for sure I finally had the movie for me. "It's so clever! It's about this loser puppeteer who finds this little door that allows him to be in John Malchovich's head for fifteen minutes at a pop!" Okay, right, a little extreme, but sounds interesting enough. Plus, it had John Cusack in it. I mean, he's not my favorite actor, but I really enjoy a vast majority of films he's starred in, especially lately.

Of course, as you can guess, I didn't like it. Why? Perhaps I can explain through comparison. The movie 'Christine' is about these moron kids who get tangled up with this vengeful and jealous possessed automobile. Sounds a little stupid and extreme, right? Sure. But at least the car had some importance. I mean, without the car, you've got no movie. You may call that a gimmick, and a gimmick it may be, but at least the gimmick had some bearing on the story. The movie 'The Matrix' was about these people who realized that we're all trapped in this giant virtual construct world called 'the matrix' and their attempt to battle the entities who constructed it. Once again, the matrix may be a gimmick, but it's essential to the plot. It provides the fundamental backdrop without which the movie suddenly doesn't work.

But in 'Being John Malchovich', the gimmick, namely 'being inside of John Malchovich' is mostly insignificant to the story. While we do get amusing scenes like when John himself enters the doorway, and amusing characters like the colony living in his brain, the simple truth of the matter is that the primary story line, namely the rather pathetic and vicious little love triangle around our three main characters, would be just the same WITHOUT the gimmick! The gimmick? Insignificant! It means nothing to the overall story. It's just glitz used to make another dumbass romantic tragedy more palatable to the easily suckered. Basically, the story of Christine is the relationship the characters have as a result of the presence of the car, Christine. The movie 'The Matrix' tells the tale of freedom fighters for humanity trying to liberate the species from the cage which is the Matrix. The story of Being John Malchovich is about two real losers and a complete bitch who can't get their sorry asses or emotions into line and end up fucking each other over repeatedly because of it. Oh, and there's some funny extras thrown in involving John Malchovich somehow. This movie should have been titled 'Three Retards'.

Speaking of our three tragic romantics, another thing this movie suffered from is the 'I loathed all the characters' syndrome. Now, I realize that this is more a matter of personal taste than a real flaw with the movie, but so the fuck what. How COULD you like any of these rather repulsive, hopeless humans? It was like watching 'Cops'. You don't just not like them, you find them totally pitiable, but not in any sympathetic way. Rather, you find their helpless and neurotic behaviors distasteful and disturbing. You want to distance yourself from them. You're upset by the notion that you and they might share similar DNA. In short, they make you want to stop watching the movie, or at least they made ME feel that way.

But when it comes down to it, it's all a matter of simply not liking a movie that had no likeable qualities. Did I think it was awful tripe? No, not quite that bad. There were some excellent scenes (mostly the puppeteer work), which makes this worth watching once. But there wasn't anything that good about it either, despite all the hype. And yet, you all keep coming up to me telling me how great it was. And I keep asking, "Why?". And you can never answer except to comment on the originality of the gimmick or to applaud John Cusack. Whatever. I describe BJM in the same way I do John McCain. You like it because everyone else seems to, but it's not mainstream, so you feel safe liking it, but you never really bother to find out what it is you like about it. You're just victims of the 'not quite trendy' art scene (or just plain bad taste, one or the other).