Movie Review: Adaptation

All kinds of art establish a relationship between artist and spectator. It is this connection that helps you, the observer, gain some insight into the artist’s mindset and proposition. Sometimes the message is buried under layers and layers of conceptualization. Some other times, the message is blunt and to the point.

Adaptation, the new offering by the same genial duo that gave us Being John Malkovich, is not so much a movie as it is a dialog between the Screenplay writer, Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage, finally putting that sad puppy dog face to good use), and you, the member of the audience.

The movie begins as Charlie is struggling with his laziness and general depressive mindset due to his incapability to produce a decent Script Adaptation of The Orchid Thief, a book about a “quixotic, charismatic schemer” (John Laroche, played brilliantly by Chris Cooper) and apparently charming musings on flowers and the obsession of men with them.

Charlie’s problem, you see, is that he loves the book. He respects the material, likes the characters, the musings and is developing an unhealthy, masturbatory infatuation with the author, Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep, who appears to be under bad lighting through the whole movie, to good effect). With the intent of being true to his source material, Charlie doesn’t want to make a movie that has violence, sex, drugs or car chases. He doesn’t want the lead character to grow or learn a valuable life lesson, he just wants to transmit that broody orchid musings feeling to the viewer. This proves to be quite a difficult task, due to the fact that nothing much actually happens in the book. What he ends up doing is writing a script about himself writing the script, which is what we get to see.

Charlie must also deal with his over enthusiastic twin brother Donald, who seems to be a physical representation of all the things Kaufman loathes about himself. Donald tries his hand at “this writing thing”, goes to a Seminar and ends up writing a laughable, quite sellable script that Charlie’s agent drools all over (it involves a kidnapper, victim and policeman that are actually the same person). Their story, which begins in the Malkovich set, has a great dynamic to it and succeeds in presenting us with the struggle in Kaufman’s head to produce something that will be both entertaining and True (in the broader sense of the word).

The first part of the movie is spent showing the confrontation between Charlie and Donald, as well as the story of how Susan Orlean met Laroche and wrote The Orchid Thief. This is all very entertaining, despite the fact that there’s not much happening. It is depressive and very true to Charlie’s intent for the script. That is, until he gives up to his -evil?- brother and they decide to look for something that Charlie’s script is missing. At this point, and through the villification of all that Kaufman held dear (the flower musings, the Script and the actual author of the book herself) the drugs, violence, sex and car chases begin. The fabled Ghost Orchid Susan frets about and claims to not have seen is actually a source for a drug that seems to act as the Marijuana from hell. Susan is shagging Laroche. Charlie discovers this and she tries to kill him for it. In the chaos that ensues, Donald suffers an accident and, before dying on his brother’s arms, conveys a valuable life lesson (great credit must be given to Jonze’s directing and pacing, because although I wanted to burst out laughing on this dramatic scene, I coudn’t), helping Charlie grow as a person, sell out and finish the script.

This movie was just plain exhilarating. The story jumps all over the place and finally ditches itself and goes out in a blaze of glory. It takes the Malkovich window into the mind premise one step further, making us spectators to the movie writing process through the product of said process. All voices in the movie are Kaufman’s. All the characters are used to advance the plot, which actually appears to be that Kaufman learnt some valuable lessons and decided to finally ground his movie with a dosage of old fashioned, marketable hollywood cliches he hates. This boggles the mind and is funny as hell to watch. Jonze’s directing style suits the script perfectly and special mention must go to the use of the blue screen -Donald and charlie, both played by Cage, are together in the same shot and talking to each other in numerous shots- and the greatly executed car crashes. I was very surprised to find out that The Orchid Thief is a real book, which adds to the overall self-mocking feel of the movie. Definitely a fun watch.

— sergio on May 10, 2003