I've never seen a movie that deals with identity as strangely or as in-depth as Being John Malkovich. If I tried to explain the plot of the movie to someone who hadn't seen the movie before, they would probably think I was making the whole thing up. It seems to explore identity in two ways. The first is more of a sci-fi/fantasy exploration of the question, which is directly explored in the movie. Given this portal that lets you experience the identity of another person, the movie decides that anyone who enters this portal will be integrated into that person's consciousness. Like a little voice in the back of one's head, it is revealed that you can influence their decisions. If you have enough manipulative control, you can even gain complete control over all their actions. Trying to enter one's consciousness while it is already occupied causes you to enter realms of their subconsciousness.
While those concepts are interesting theoretical rabbit holes to explore, they remain purely theoretical, with no practical application or resonance in the viewer's lives. However, the movie has the human aspect identity as well. The main character is an exaggerated version of what many people have been at some point or another during their lives. He becomes enamored with a girl at his workplace, and becomes someone else to gain her love and acceptance. The main difference between the film and reality is that he literally becomes another person instead of just acting different. This turns out to be a very poor decision on his part. His wife, although a smaller focus of the movie, deals with identity issues as well, although hers focus more on gender identity.
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