Being John Malkovich is about seeing the world through the eyes of another human being. The concept initially seems quite exciting, but the reality of Spike Jonze’s film and Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay is this: living your life through the eyes of someone else brings out the worst in us. It forms jealously, envy and a need to compete to be better than who we are so that we can please the world. The mere fact that people are dumped out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike near an industrial factory says quite a tremendous amount about this journey within Malkovich. It says that while it feels incredible it really leaves you dirty and abandoned on the side of a highway, and you only get 15 minutes of this.
In a twisted way it’s 15 minutes of connection for people who aren’t willing to connect to their own lives by dealing with the issues that are before them. Craig and Lotte’s relationship is hanging on by a thread thinner than Craig’s puppets are manipulated by, but instead of communicating with each other, even to end the relationship, they choose not to speak but instead seek to fulfill a physical impulse they both experience from Maxine.
And in a way, Maxine represents capitalism. She isn’t interested in the little man, Craig himself, but she uses him to exploit what he has for profit, and by so doing Craig believes he is loved. But the reality is that he’s being used which creates a deep seated bitterness and a desire to become great to such a degree that he can demand her to love him. In the end, his necessity to be great turns Maxine away from him and he’s left as a just another lonely man who no one will recognize for his talents, but only see as a hack. Thus, this is why he chooses to enter the child. He can only experience being wanted from a distance and he would rather have that than attempt to be someone in his own skin.
