Forgotten Classics is a recurring feature, a look back and reflection on great motion pictures that often slip under the radar and become under-appreciated, ignored relics of a previous era or simply damned by lack of face time in the spotlight.

Being John Malkovich

Directed by Spike Jonze

Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman

Us, 1999

It takes real skill to come up with a film of indisputable weirdness and make it high concept, so from this salient fact we can safely conclude that Charlie Kaufman is one hell of a writer. 1999’s Being John Malkovich, Kaufman and director Spike Jonze’s screen debut, can be described in one curt sentence: ‘Struggling and restless puppeteer discovers a portal leading into the mind of actor John Malkovich’.

That’s it, that’s the premise. Throw in a five foot high office floor, an ape with abandonment issues, bald Charlie Sheen and one of cinema...