This film explores this interesting theme and one should admit that the film is brilliant. I haven't seen anything like that for a long time. It's difficult to determine its genre as the development of the theme is not so standard. The film keeps you strained and interested for the whole time and it is quite rare nowadays.

So what exactly happens? The young husband Craig Schwartz (brilliantly played by John Cusack) is out of job. He used to be a puppeteer and as one can guess this job is not very poplar nowadays. His wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) urges him to find some other kind of job in order to earn some extra dollars so Schwartz becomes a filing clerk in some strange company where people walk bending half forward due to the very low ceiling.

Here Craig falls in love with one of his coworkers, a beautiful but very independent woman Maxine (Catherine Keener). However she is totally indifferent to him though they go out once in a while and work together. One day Schwartz discovers a portal that leads right to the head of John Malkovich, a famous American actor. He is so fascinated with the experience that he tells everyone about it so soon after that he and Maxine sell excursions to the Malkovich's head. Yet, the one who is really fascinated with this unusual sensation is his wife Lotte, who repeats it again and again. The story complicates by amorous attraction between Maxine and Lotte who uses Malkovich body to attract Maxine. Soon Malkovich himself learnt about the whole business and made a trip to his own head (one of the funniest episodes in the movie). Craig understands that being Malkovich is the only way to attract Maxine so he uses it. Due to his talent of puppeteer he achieves considerable results in controlling the actor's body.

And it goes on. Craig forgot everything for Maxine's sake, Maxine forgot everything for the wish to control Craig (not considering money and fame that came from the fact of being with Malkovich), Lotte too can't forget her unfaithful friend, and is desperate to find out the root of the cause which was an easy thing for her to do. The finish is very good and logically flows from the whole plot, no sudden deus ex machine, mad scientist and all this stuff. All the characters are introduced early in the film and are very persuasive.

The actors' play is incomparable and it's just a pleasure to watch them all. John Cusack reminded me of Johnny Depp here by his power of transformation. I think Depp would play this part as well as Cusack did. Cameron Diaz is not like in most of her roles. There are no bad actresses, there are bad directors, one can say. Malkovich plays Malkovich and does a brilliant job out of it. This movie is one of the best made this year and I'd recommend it to everyone.

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