Color Me Kubrick

Heartbreaking though it may be to admit, an agile turn from John Malkovich alone does not a good movie make. Yet Malkovich is all there is to this episodic, barely there sketch of the real-life imposter who dandied around ’90s London claiming to be the reclusive director and picking up dumb young men. Admittedly, he’s in top form, bringing to the part an inspired array of accents and manners, plus a sweetly obvious enjoyment that’s impossible to begrudge. The scenario itself, though, becomes so punishingly stale that it’s impossible not to begrudge. Is it because we’re all such starfuckers now that the peculiar vanity of phony celebrity barely even registers as peculiar anymore? The film was mounted by two former Kubrick assistants, for what that’s worth, which amounts to nothing, really.