Being John Malkovich

The initial goal of many films is to establish a believable world that mirrors our own society. This is to give a legitimacy to the film, to allow the viewer to think about how similar the people on the screen’s lives are to their own. Some fantasy films, in contrast, tug at the viewers’ imaginations in order to transport them to a fairytale world a long ways away where a magical story takes place. …

…and desperation really do occur frequently in our world. The only difference in the real world is that there is not any way, as there was in the film, to escape the normal and take a journey, a sort of out-of-body experience, into someone else. It was this trip that allowed the characters in the film to see life in a different light. And it was this change that brought many emotions to the forefront.