A lovelorn screenwriter becomes desperate as he tries and fails to adapt ‘The Orchid Thief’ by Susan Orlean for the screen.
No one does “meta” like Charlie Kaufman. “Adaptation,” his 2002 collaboration with Spike Jonze, marks perhaps his most blatantly self-reflective, tortured, cynical, but also impassioned and hilarious project so far. Aided by a fine cast of performers at the peak of their careers, the film presents an intricate riddle-within-a-riddle to unravel under the guise of a gimmicky comedy. Come for the “Nicolas-Cage-playing-twins” stunt, and stay for the acute study of our pursuit of happiness.
How “meta” is “Adaptation”? Nicolas Cage plays a screenwriter, whose name is Charlie Kaufman. He also plays his twin brother, Donald, who’s credited as a co-screenwriter. No, Donald doesn’t exist in real life… but he might as well. In the film, Donald is Charlie’s alter ego, an essential part of himself he both loathes and loves, denies, and ultimately embraces.
The book Charlie is struggling to adapt is a non-fiction book by real-life journalist and author Susan Orlean (played by Meryl Streep), and its hero, John Laroche (Chris Cooper), is a real horticulturist and rare orchid poacher. Add to that moments like behind-the-scenes footage from “Being John Malkovich,” a continuous voice-over narration about the cheapness of voice-over narration, and a dizzying array of meta in-jokes and references, and yes, this film is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to self-awareness.
Jonze and Kaufman dissect the creative process with a razor-sharp blade. Charlie’s inflated ego, coupled with his utter social incompetence and insecurities, is juxtaposed against the success of his vacuous brother’s imbecilic thriller (“It’s taut”). Donald adheres perfectly to Hollywood expectations, while Charlie beats his head against the wall attempting to write a film about flowers. Charlie’s continued pursuit of defying conventions and being the opposite of Donald ironically leads to him becoming the hero of a conventional thriller, one that his brother might’ve written.
But “Adaptation” is about so much more than that. Adapting a novel is compared to human adaptation, how it assumes the intangible form of a natural, intuitive, resilient, symbiotic process. Some of us adapt better than others. Like bees pollinating flowers — one of the most breathtaking passages in a breathtaking film — it comes naturally to some. Others have to reduce existence to a manageable snippet. Clearly, filmmaking comes naturally to Kaufman and Jonze, who visualize passages from the book that most other artists would deem unfilmable.
There’s so much to love about “Adaptation.” The filmmakers unravel the characters, demonstrating how a book should never be judged by its cover. Take Laroche’s toothless grin — the subject of ridicule early on, and then pathos, as his background is revealed. As expected, the dialogue begs to be quoted from the first spoken word to the last; Laroche’s “fuck fish” speech about hobbies marks another high point in a film that’s crammed with them. Some may find the sudden swerve into the drug-addled, gun-toting, crazed final third jarring, but the effect is intentional. Kaufman and Jonze elevate our collective consciousness for over an hour, then slyly pander to our expectations.
At the end of the day, “Adaptation” is about seeing the miracle of life. “People find love, people lose it,” exclaims Brian Cox’s screenwriting professor Robert McKee. “Someone goes hungry; somebody betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can’t find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don’t know crap about life!” Life, indeed, is full of narratives to adapt. “Adaptation,” now available in 4K, happens to be one of the best.
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