Charlie Kaufman, award-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, was in a rut. He had the thankless task of writing a screenplay version of Susan Orlean's novel, The Orchid Thief. And although he immersed himself in Orlean's pretty but plotless prose, Kaufman couldn't conceive of a way to faithfully adapt the book.
So instead, he wrote a screenplay about the troubles he was having writing the Orchid Thief screenplay.
Thus begins Adaptation, the result of that screenplay -- a self-reflective testament to the trials and errors of the experience, with added fictional elements.
While one story line features Kaufman and his creative struggles, a parallel story line portrays significant passages of The Orchid Thief, the true account of the experience reporter Orlean had with John Laroche, the quirky Floridian who enlisted Seminole Indians to snatch rare orchids from a national preserve.
Director Spike Jonze, who also directed Malkovich, does an excellent job of playing with the tone of the film from scene to scene. He emphasizes the darkly comic aspects of the Kaufman story and the allegorical whimsy of the Laroche story, while extracting common, unifying themes from each.
At first, Orlean -- played masterfully as always by Meryl Streep -- sees only the comical, colorful façade of Laroche (Chris Cooper), but in time she begins to see an understated poetry blossoming within him.
Laroche's obsession with flowers mirrors Kaufman's developing obsession with Orlean. This theme of unquenchable desire permeates Kaufman the screenwriter's movie and Kaufman the character's life.
Also omnipresent in Kaufman's life is his slacker brother Donald, whom Kaufman curiously invented for the purpose of the film -- and even gave a co-writing credit. Both Kaufman and Donald are played in the film by Nicolas Cage, who does a brilliant job of creating characterizations so memorable and distinct that it is tempting to suggest the actor has a remarkable chemistry with himself.
Donald's cheerful buffoonery provides for much of the humor of the film. He tries to learn the craft of screenwriting from a weekend seminar so that he will be prepared to write his own hilariously ill-conceived screenplay about a schizophrenic serial killer. The more "success" he seems to have concocting his "masterpiece," however, the further his brother slips into desperation to finish his own script.
As the film progresses, the parallel story lines of Orlean and Kaufman intersect in an unprecedented way that's as delightful as it is shocking. Just when it appears clear where the story is headed, the audience's expectations are shattered by a sudden, jarring change and it becomes unclear if one is watching the work of Kaufman the writer, Kaufman the character, or Kaufman the brother ... or all three!
If this explanation seems confusing or unorthodox, then you have a small taste of the absorbing, ambidextrously amusement of Adaptation.
To say it is a great film would be an understatement. Kaufman and his Malkovich collaborator Jonze have made a work so splendidly unique that it invents its own genre, its own art form, and its own league of evaluation.
