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I am at something of a loss to adequately describe Being John Malkovich. It is one of the most singularly bizarre movies I have ever seen, and yet, unlike other movies out there on the lunatic fringe (David Lynch movies, for instance), this one hangs together with a remarkable cohesiveness and singularity of purpose, despite the mounting up of one bizarre image after another. The plot has down on his luck puppeteer John Cusak getting a job in an (strange) office, only to discover a portal behind one of the filing cabinets that leads into the mind of John Malkovich. He sets up a business with bitchy co-worker Catherine Keener to sell tickets for the experience of "doing Malkovich." Soon, Cusak's wife (played by an all but unrecognizable Cameron Diaz) stumbles into the act and forms a romantic triangle. And that's only in the first half of the movie.

This movie is billed as a comedy, and I guess it is a comedy. It certainly shocks laughter out of the audience, but it is a nervous laughter at best. What Being John Malkovich REALLY is is a horror movie in disguise, and a pretty damned good horror movie at that, offering a scary meditation on the nature of identity and on the escapist inpulse. The reason that it works so well, I think, is the way in which it is filmed. It is completely deadpan, shot in a flat, documentary style that convinces us of its absolute reality, which is surprising considering that director Spike Jonze comes from the world of music videos. Charles Kaufman's screenplay weighs in on this particular balancing act, too, balancing the absolutely absurd plot with calculated banality. On the whole, the result is brilliantly realized. One sits through it in a state of amazement, wondering what will happen next and wondering how the hell it got made in the first place.