Cinema

Actually, no. That was Spike Jones, and he's been dead for 35 years.

The director of this week's new release is actually called Adam Spiegel, and is the 29-year-old heir to a billion-dollar catalogue business. He earned his sobriquet merely by wearing the same hairstyle as the former musician.

As Spike Jonze, Spiegel directed pop videos for the likes of the Beastie Boys, and recently appeared as third lead in the black war comedy, Three Kings.

But it is this astonishing and surreal feature that has propelled him suddenly and securely into the big time.

Being John Malkovich is as odd a concept as you could possibly conjure, no matter what mind-enhancing drugs you had been taking. It is this: John Malkovich - the one who was in The Killing Fields and Dangerous Liaisons - has a secret panel in his head into which people can journey for a day's entertainment.

Does this make a convincing film? Surprisingly, yes. The premiere audience at the London Film Festival and the one at last week's advance screening in Bradford were stunned. The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Jonze for a Best director Oscar on he strength of it.

The plot concerns one Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), a gifted but penniless street puppeteer who is swiftly coming to realise that New York City doesn't appreciate his 'unique talents'. Nor, as it turns out, does his wife of 10 years, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), who works in a pet shop and likes to bring her work home with her.

Then Craig gets a menial clerk's job in a skyscraper office, where by chance he discovers an opening in the wall behind a filing cabinet. Nervously crawling inside, he is suddenly sucked through a dark, wet corridor at high speed - and with a blinding flash of white light, he finds himself looking through another man's eyes.

The eyes are familiar, since they belong to the Hollywood actor John Malkovich (himself). For the next 15 minutes, Craig is a silent witness to Malkovich's daily routines. Then, just as suddenly as he was sucked inside, he finds himself deposited unceremoniously by the side of a road in New Jersey.

Sensing a money-making opportunity, Craig lets beautiful colleague Maxine (Catherine Keener) in on his discovery and together they turn the passage to Malkovich's head into New York's most popular tourist attraction, offering customers the thrill of seeing at first hand how a famous man really lives.

Cusack is marvellous as the hapless sap who loses everything to the predatory Maxine. But the star of the show is Malkovich himself, mocking his public image with such gleeful and mischievous abandon that for the paying punters, being John Malkovich becomes nothing more than a long ego trip.

This is a movie too weird to ever truly set the box office alight. Nevertheless, if Jonze goes on like this, it could he his name that becomes the familiar one - and that of the first Spike Jones that starts to look like an unfortunate typing error.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.