John Cusack stars as Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer with so little going in his life that even his wife Lotte's (Cameron Diaz) pet parrot bosses him around. The only time he has control is when he's working with his puppets, but even then the applause is taped. Live reaction is often met with a punch to the face.

So, with the puppet thing going nowhere, Craig takes an office job as a file clerk. The office is no ordinary office; its set-up is unique and oddball characters abound. But there are two things about his new job that have got Craig engaged. One of them is Maxine (Catherine Keener), a coworker and all-around bitch who doesn't want anything to do with Craig and frequently and mockingly tells him so. The other is a portal that Craig happens upon one day. He opens a door, crawls through a tunnel, and with a flash of light, he is John Malkovich for a full 15 minutes before being spit out outside of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The portal provides for Craig a way to finally, truly be somebody else, and a somebody who's somebody. More importantly it provides an inroad to Maxine, who has agreed to go partners with him on a business in which they let anybody be John Malkovich for $200 a pop. Complicating things is Craig's wife, who also wants to be John Malkovich all the time. That's where the monkey comes in.