Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich ... TV series, blockbusters, computer games, tabloid fiction, glossy magazines, secular chronicles, talk shows - all this serves a single purpose: to give a person to be someone else. New York cop or St. Petersburg cop, romantic heroine or cool detective, Batman, Alla Pugacheva, Johnny Depp, Justin Bieber... John Malkovich will do, too.
Try on someone else’s mask, someone else’s life; be afraid of real or fictional, but alien (Alien!) problems. Invent self-justification: they say that celebrities also have problems, as do we. But the funny thing is, it's not our problem. And ours, here they are, undecided. Children, family, career, country.
But scary. Because this is real life. Words, actions, and consequences are all real. No pause button, no save, you can't turn off the show. There is nowhere to leave this game, there is nowhere to switch from this channel.
So it's better to be someone else. A Level 80 elf, Dr. House, or that single mother with five kids on the talk show. We are not heartless, no, we share not only the joys of a luxurious life, we do not seek easy ways, we do not run away from drama and tragedy – these are not our dramas and tragedies. All these people, real and fictional, will live, suffer, rejoice, die there – in photos and screens, far, far or nowhere at all.
This pain is so easy to turn off. The main thing is not to be yourself.
That’s what I was led to think by watching this film, which, although it contains such a powerful philosophical and social message, is not so good. It begins as a great Kafkaesque satire, a surreal black comedy imbued with misanthropy, vaguely reminiscent of Shakhnazarov’s City of Zero. But then, alas, there is a love line - pure banter, of course, but all this unconventional love triangle with wild passions and turned into a jealous idiot, the main character is very tiring. Appeared at the end of the bias in the mystical thriller and completely seemed inappropriate. However, then it came to me - this is Spike Jones, the creator of the NF-drama "She", fondled by critics, but godlessly dull, in my opinion, the picture. “Being John Malkovich” is a much more interesting movie.
Bottom line: the film is certainly worth watching, and, unlike the more modern creation of the director, does not cause nausea. A great parable and satire, a questionable pseudo-melodrama and an inappropriate element of a mystical thriller - this is a mess waiting for the viewer who dared to watch "Be John Malkovich." For lovers, “Cinema is not for everyone.”
7 out of 10
Original
