THE JOYS OF BEING MALKOVICH.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Operating on the principal that a movie cannot be too clever, ``Being John Malkovich'' is one smart, surreal cinematic wormhole.

The feature directing debut of music-video whiz kid (and ``Three Kings'' actor) Spike Jonze and the first produced screenplay by the intricately minded Charlie Kaufman, the movie never lags in satiric invention. It's a zonky examination of identity, artistry, alienation and economics, among other not naturally funny subjects, and it finds uproarious humor in the most unexpected places.

John Malkovich's head being the primary location. The sardonic, fussy actor proves himself a surprisingly good sport and a marvelous farceur as the unwilling host of this ripping psycho-fantasy. As John Horatio Malkovich, an actor everybody vaguely recognizes as the star of some jewel theft movie he never made, he moves from mild bemusement to simmering outrage to full-bore schizophrenia with unerring control and deadpan wit. He even does a good John Cusack; it's the bravura performance of the year.

But how does Mr. M come to this sorry state? We will do our best to explain.

Cusack plays the woebegone Craig Schwartz, an artist cursed with a puppeteer's skills. He performs existential marionette plays alone in his basement workroom, and his street-corner renditions of the Heloise and Abelard tragedy endear him to neither passing kids nor their parents.

To make matters worse, Craig's marriage to pet store operator Lotte (Cameron Diaz, like Cusack almost unrecognizable under a mountain range of bad hair) has become so rote that their apartment has become a happier home for sick animals than for either of the spouses.

Craig takes a real job, sort of, at a filing company on the ``seventh-and-a-half floor'' of a Manhattan office building. Being just half a floor, about 5-foot-3 in height, all the schlubs who work there have to stoop when walking - a brilliant visualization of dead-end job despair.

To make conditions even more uncomfortable, Craig is instantly smitten with an utterly uninterested co-worker, Maxine (Catherine Keener, shrewdly refining the heartless witch she played in ``Your Friends and Neighbors'' into an amusingly callous narcissist).

In these cramped conditions, Craig discovers a hidden door. It leads to a tunnel that ends, approximately, behind Malkovich's cornea. For 15-minute intervals, visitors can experience whatever John is doing at the time; they are then unceremoniously dumped beside the New Jersey Turnpike.

Lotte tries it and immediately decides that she's a transsexual. Maxine, who sets up an after-hours business with Craig selling Malkovich rides for $200 a pop, gets very intrigued by the idea of making love to John while Lotte's inside him. A jealous Craig plots a devious use of his puppet-mastery to win his heart's desire.

Then things start to get weird.

Jonze hits a remarkably effective tone early on, a kind of grungy, kitchen-sink realism laced with extreme psychology and a mild, ``Twilight Zone'' undercurrent and sustains it through increasingly freakier complications. Incomparable wit comes in many forms, among them the best surprise cameo of the year, the flashback of a traumatized chimp and, when the actor catches on to what's being done to him and insists on going through the door himself, the ultimate John Malkovich experience.

Remarkably for a movie with so many shifting perspectives and fantasy elements, ``BJM'' remains narratively coherent no matter how strange it gets. Just as astonishing for such a jokey, playful piece, the film boasts genuine emotional insight and affection for its screwed-up characters. You'll never laugh as hard at the idea of identity appropriation as you will at ``Being John Malkovich.'' You may never consider it as seriously, either.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Being John Malkovich'' (R; sex, language, nudity, violence).

The stars: John Cusack, John Malkovich, Catherine Keener, Cameron Diaz, Orson Bean.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Spike Jonze. Written by Charlie Kaufman. Produced by Michael Stipe, Sandy Stern, Steve Golin and Vincent Landay. Released by USA Films.

Running time: One hour, 52 minutes.

Playing: AMC Century 14, Century City; Cineplex Showcase, Hollywood; Mann Criterion, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Four stars.

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Photo

Photo: Catherine Keener and John Cusack get inside the actor's head in ``Being John Malkovich.''