Spike Jonze’s film Being John Malkovich, written by Charlie Kaufman, starts off like many movies we’ve seen: an unfulfilled man, unhappy about his failing career and marriage looks to another woman for fulfillment...then it takes a bizarre turn. Craig Schwartz, played by John Cusack, finds a strange doorway inside an equally strange office (the entire floor where he works is only half the size of a normal floor), and it leads directly into John Malkovich’s body.
Craig is a talented, but out of work puppeteer living with his wife, Lottie (Cameron Diaz) and their multitude of animals, include their pet monkey, Elijah who has been seeing a therapist because of an ulcer due to childhood trauma. At Lottie’s suggestion that he get a job in order to get out of his depression, Craig finds work at Lester Corp., a filing company that is in a non-traditional work environment. It’s on floor 7 ½, and is half the height of a normal floor. While at orientation for his new job, Craig swoons over Maxine, and soon engages her for drinks after work even though he is married.
Craig soon finds the hidden door to Malkovich’s body behind a filing cabinet in deep storage. After his first romp in John’s body, he’s most excited to tell Maxine in order to impress her. She instead turns it into a profitable business called JM Inc., charging $200 for a 15 minute journey into the skin of John Malkovich.
Things begin to go a different direction than expected for Craig when his wife wants to enter Malkovich, and after her experience she is hooked, as if something new has awakened in her, and she wants to explore gender reassignment surgery. After this, Maxine takes it upon herself to find Malkovich, date him and even set up making love to him while Lottie is inside of his body.
Both Craig and Lottie are now in love with Maxine, who rejects Craig as not being her type and tells Lottie she only likes her inside of Malkovich’s body. Craig become unhinged by Lottie and Maxine’s love affair. He takes Lottie captive, tying her up and putting her in Elijah’s (their monkey) cage while he enters Malkovich in order to sleep with Maxine.
Because Craig is a master puppeteer he is able to control Malkovich unlike Lottie, and decides to stay inside after Maxine is impressed by his love making. Craig, with his new vessel decides to transition Malkovich’s career into one as a puppeteer. In the meantime, Lottie goes to Dr. Lester who reveals himself as Captain Mertin, a sea captain who has been entering “vessels” (other people’s bodies) for centuries and offers her the chance to join he and his friends the chance to do the same, and live forever. All they have to do is enter an open vessel before midnight on their 44th birthday, and they will be able to stay alive.
We flash-forward and find that Maxine is pregnant, and Craig, as Malkovich, has become a phenomenon in both the art world and the world of pop culture as a master puppeteer. After a performance on his 44th birthday he comes home to discover Maxine has been kidnapped by Dr. Lester and Lottie, and if he doesn’t leave Malkovich’s body, before midnight they are going to kill her. He doesn’t want to do it, as he loves his life and the recognition he’s achieved, but chooses to let go of all that to save Maxine. When he does he learns that the child Maxine is carrying is actually Lottie’s, from the experience they had together while Lottie was inhabiting Malkovich, and that she is completely unhappy with Craig. She and Lottie run off together leaving Craig in a ditch off the New Jersey turnpike (which is where you get dumped out after your experience in Malkovich). Dr. Lester and his friends enter Malkovich, and we see that Maxine and Lottie’s daughter is now a vessel...and Craig is inside of her body, still longing to be with Maxine.
