Take Andy Warhol's notion that everybody gets 15 minutes of fame, and then guess how that applies to the schlubs you know. Your roommate, for instance. Or that bozo across the hall. Think fame will ever swing the spotlight their way for a full 15 minutes? Fat chance.

Now imagine getting to be somebody famous for 15 minutes, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. Impossible? Not according to Charlie Kaufman, whose outrageous — yet ingenious — concept for Being John Malkovich gives characters that impossible opportunity: just step through a tiny portal, and with a slippery whoosh!, you're suddenly inside the head of actor John Malkovich. For 15 fabulous minutes, fame lies within your grasp before you're flushed out rather gracelessly somewhere along the New Jersey Turnpike.

Quirky? As hell! Farfetched? No more than being-somebody-else movies like Innerspace or Big.

The pleasant absurdity of Being John Malkovich emerges quite comfortably from Kaufman's writing, as sophisticated wit and boundless imagination propel the story along a series of unexpected twists. Its energy springs from Spike Jonze's direction, with almost exclusive use of hand-held camerawork situating us within the action, while composer Carter Burwell, on whom the Coen brothers depend, supplies the mood. The magic of Being John Malkovich, however, springs from the acting.

Cameron Diaz dissolves behind her role, whatever there was about Mary disguised by her wallflower charm and that tumbleweed of frazzled hair. She's so well disguised, in fact, that audiences hardly recognize Diaz behind Lotte's winsome, homely front. John Cusack shrugs off years of pretty-boy posing (Sixteen Candles and Say Anything... all but forgotten) as our long-haired, unkempt hero, a puppeteer named Craig who's more a crazed starving-artist than an upbeat and likable Geppetto. He's a string-tugger who raises issues, giving street-side performances of material as touchy as the love letters between Abelard and Heloise.

Kudos to this cast, who play blemished characters without worrying how it might taint their off-screen personas (an approach echoed in a noteworthy cameo by Charlie Sheen). Cusack and Diaz may be cast against type, but master thespian John Malkovich surprises us most by agreeing to participate in this mockery of himself.

And what a good sport he is! He plays along as characters recognize him vaguely but stumble over his name ("John ... don't tell me ... Mapplethorpe?") and his screen credits ("that jewel-thief movie"). Sometimes it feels as though Malkovich, acclaimed thespian that he is, has yet to receive his due 15 minutes of fame. As the story eventually reveals, whatever Malkovich's accomplishments in life, his true purpose is as a vessel for others to manipulate. Seems somehow fitting considering the facility with which real-life Malkovich allows himself to be made over by the filmmakers.

"It's just a matter of time before Malkovich is just another puppet hanging next to my worktable," Craig vows with all the hollow menace of a mad scientist. Puppeteering seems such an inspired career choice for the main character in a movie about control — love, lust and longing being its primary incarnations - even if "nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's winter economic climate."

Responding to an ad that calls for a "short statured desk clerk with unusually nimble and dextrous fingers needed for speed filing," Craig applies to Lester Corp. The company is nestled on a demi-story between the 7th and 8th floors of the Mertin Flemmer Building. The low-ceilinged office space provides a haven for Alice in Wonderland-ian antics, playful surrealism with a millennial twist. Here, amidst the likes of a 105-year-old CEO and an "executive liason" with a degree in Speech Impedimentology, Craig discovers the portal that gives him access to Malkovich. Surely, the ever-late White Rabbit can't be far behind.

"Do you realize what a metaphysical can of worms this is?" Craig breathlessly asks the office knockout (to name Catherine Keener's character would be to spoil a particularly rewarding joke) upon emerging from his first ride as Malkovich. Craig is smitten, and he hopes his discovery might win her interest. It's important to note that Keener's character, who preys on Craig's pathetic insecurities, is not so much a villain as a self-centered opportunist. What are a few broken hearts on the way to personal fulfillment? After all, she's just after her own 15 minutes.

Stepping through the portal and being John Malkovich means something different to each of the characters. For some, hopping in to share the most mundane 15 minutes of Malkovich's day is brush enough with fame. For Craig's wife Lotte, the experience puts her in touch with an unforeseen transsexual urge. "Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man!" she shouts at Craig as he tries to discourage her from entering Malkovich a second time. No longer the self-assured blonde airhead, Diaz gives Lotte a candor that whisks us past the giddy tittering such a statement might elicit.

The movies have been critiquing themselves for years, with stars like Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson snubbing their own personas in movies like All About Eve and Sunset Blvd. Being John Malkovich is so sly, so twisted, that we hardly recognize the depth of its satire. Kaufman provides an original voice to this one-of-a-kind concoction, and Jonze offers the kind of renegade vision it takes to bring it to the screen.

Earlier this year, Dan Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (the guys behind The Blair Witch Project) provided a terrific concept that anyone with a film camera could make themselves. In fact, someone else already had with The Last Broadcast. In Being John Malkovich, Kaufman and Jonze start with another terrific idea and push it in a direction that only they could have taken it. The result: the type of movie that makes audiences lean forward in their seats, afraid to miss a word or overlook a single detail.

I've seen Being John Malkovich with audiences three times now, and I'm convinced that it's the best film of the year. Even if you're unwilling to concede this point, you'll be hard-pressed to find three more original sequences than the trio that highlight this film: a monkey flashback ("Being Elijah Schwartz," if you will), the startling vision that confronts John Malkovich when he enters his own portal and a harrowing, whirlwind trip through Malkovich's subconscious.

Any one of these scenes would be more than I could expect from a single film. That Kaufman and Jonze pull off all three, two of them quite early in the show, and still manage to sustain our rabid interest for the remainder of the film shows expert ingenuity and creative craftsmanship.

Some might be jarred by the film's abrupt conclusion, which wraps things up before we have a chance to guess the outcome. I think of it a bit like being ripped from incomprehensible bliss and dumped headfirst along the New Jersey Turnpike. As soon as I've collected myself, I'm ready to ride it again. Who needs 15 minutes of fame when you can spend two perfect hours Being John Malkovich?