Adaptation.

Adaptation (2002)

I adapted. I evolved. My second take on this movie was a turnaround from the first, when I thought it was needlessly complicated and self-absorbed. After all, the lead character is the screenwriter, and he's so full of himself and his self-pitying diary entries he has an identical twin to double the narcissism. I remembered enjoying it, but thinking it wheedling and grad school ultra-clever, too.

But that's not it at all. This is a movie that is all about plot construction but not about being inside the plot in the normal viewer-filmmaker way. For me, I couldn't just watch to see what was going to happen next. Things happen, there is a true climax of an ending, but it's how they happen that matters. The layering of time frames is paralleled by the layering of realities--until you realize that it's all real, and that the supposed movie being written is and isn't the movie we are watching. Or if it is, totally, and we see it's genesis on screen, it is still a screenplay about something real. Or not, once you see that the book, "The Orchid Thief," which is a real book by Susan Orlean, is not "Adaptation" at all, but just a thread for Kaufman to weave these different personalities and plots together.

Fiction or fact, who cares? Well, that's part of the film's cunning--there's even a cameo of John Malkovich at the start, and a shot of that famous Being John Malkovich set of the half sized floor 7 ½ in an office building. And for the record, there is a Ghost Orchid that grows in the Everglades, Polyrrhiza lindenii, and yes, you can now buy it legally from growers with greenhouses. But Charles Kaufman the very real screenwriter (Being John Malkovich, of course, and Synecdoche, New York) is played by an actor, Nicholas Cage, with Cage's usual nervous ticks and uneasiness. Perfect for this role.

But does it all work? On the brain, yes. It's fascinating and engrossing, the work of a screenwriter showing off his chops. Is there suspense? Not really, even though it involves thieves and guns and romance. More telling, do we care about the characters? Nope again. Not for me. I'm curious about these people--Meryl Streep as the writer of the book, and Chris Cooper as the orchid thief are both right on--but not worried about their survival, in love or in life. Still, I had to see every minute because I wanted to see how these very disparate characters were used to construct the construction, to force a point.

To say the movie isn't original or well done is foolish. The director? The redoubtable Spike Jonze, who seems to have let Kaufman lead the way, so the filming, per se, is excellent without being notable. You can't quite tell he's a television commercial director, but once you find that out it makes sense, and the movie is broken into short pieces not unlike your average t.v. experience.

To say Adaptation isn't to your taste is, of course, very reasonable. But if you can watch it the way I did the second time, open to its inner meanderings and the jumping from layer to layer, open that is to the working of the narrative plot stripped bare, you'll be glued.

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a neurotic screenwriter on the set of his movie 'Being John Malkovich' in 1998. He is uncontrollably sweaty in a meeting with movie executive Valerie Thomas (Tilda Swinton) who wants him to adapt Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep)'s novel "The Orchid Thief". He wants to stay true to the book and not Hollywood it up. The book is the story of John Laroche (Chris Cooper) who takes rare orchids from the Florida State Parks in the everglades using his Seminole Indian workers. Charlie starts developing feelings for his friend Amelia Kavan (Cara Seymour). His twin brother Donald is an easy-going slacker who decides to start screen writing. Surprisingly, Donald's clichéd multiple-personality murder thriller is a big hit while he is really struggling with the flower book.

Returning to 'Being John Malkovich' is meta-insanity and a great stroke of genius. Donald and his screenplay is hilarious. This is real head-spinning and I love it. Some say people could be turned off by the self-references and the loopy writing. It's a bit of a challenge but it's never difficult to follow. The movie does take a twist at the end which I wish they hinted at earlier. Cage is at his best doing duo duty. This is one of the most original script ever devised.

The first time I saw "Adaptation" I expected something else and walked away severely disappointed. As some of you out there who Private Messaged me in regards to my initial review posted on IMDb might already be aware, I originally gave it a rating of 3.5/5 stars, back when I was frequently contributing to the site. I passed on without much thought, considering it a disappointment and leaving my critique for those who cared to read it.

It remains the single comment to have generated the most feedback for me. More than "The Passion of the Christ," and more than yes, even my upsetting review of 2003's "Peter Pan" (which seemed to anger the small die-hard fanbase for the film that lurks on these message boards - by the way, I've had to clarify this sentence by adding "for the film" because someone PM'd me yesterday accusing me of implying I have a fanbase on IMDb...no, I am referring to the film's fanbase, so please hold off on the accusations). I digress. In summary I gave "Adaptation" a negative rating and to my surprise, perhaps because I avoided totally slamming the film, the fans responded to me with kind words rather than harsh ones; conceivably they too had initially taken a dislike to the film? I made a daring move. I bought "Adaptation" on DVD for ten bucks, thinking, "I've got nothing to lose." Plus, the front cover looked cool anyway.

I watched it again (after taking into mind several themes and self-referential layers I had failed to visualize before) and was blown away by the originality and genius of the movie.

My hugest complaint regarding "Adaptation," originally, was its absurd ending -- I felt it was out of place, silly, and totally anti-climactic. Little did I realize this was the point -- to be a parody of the typical Hollywood blockbuster.

There are so many underlying jokes, gags and self-references that the film grows better -- like "Back to the Future" -- on each new viewing. You're always finding new stuff.

I found new respect for Nicolas Cage as an actor after my second viewing of this. I have always liked Cage despite the criticism he receives for being a one-sided actor; here, he proves he's capable of creating two very different human beings out of the same mold. Brilliant, Oscar-worthy stuff.

All in all I got it wrong the first time. "Adaptation" isn't a film that starts out clever and descends into a messy and stupid finish. Well, actually, it is. But that's the point. I didn't get it before. Now I do.

If you disliked this film, my advice? Watch it again. It knows a bit more about itself than you probably do. And read up on the message boards here a bit to get a clearer grasp of what's going on if you're totally clueless.

P.S. I'd like to thank all the people on this site who messaged me in response to my review.

Three years after director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kauffman's brilliantly offbeat masterpiece Being John Malkovich, comes their latest stream of conscious head trip. Yes folks, this one stars Nicholas Cage...and, Nicholas Cage.

The film starts off appropriately enough inside Being John Malkovich(or more precisely on the set of Being John Malkovich when Malkovich is inside his own head) But this is no sequel...no no, much more than that. We soon go back to the beginning. Not the beginning of the movie, but to the beginning of it all. To the dawn of the universe, a zero in the fabric of time itself hurling toward the deep chasm of entropy. From the primitive scribblings of early man to the manic late night scribblings of the neurotic Charlie Kauffman(played by Cage)

What we have here is a film about orchid thieves, high society New York socialites, screenwriters, identical twins, crocodiles, narcotic rings, and internet porn...err, more aptly put: a movie about a guy writing a movie about a book inside of another movie. Oh yeah, and it's based on a true story. Sound confusing?

Adaptation is the screen treatment of the best selling non fiction book The Orchid Thief. Only thing is the main character in the film is doing the adapting, and writing himself into script. In the film we go from early primordial man to Being John Malkovich's floor seven and a half...and somehow it all makes sense.

Is this an incoherent parable on the parasitic relationship between writers and their subjects? The evolution from single cell organisms to paleolithic glee? Or a look at how everything seems to have a purpose in life? Somehow between the obscure Hollywood industry injokes, Silence of the Lambs references, and celebrity Boggle tournaments I missed something.

Unfortunately by the third act(when the movie goes from non fiction to fiction) Adaptation unravels and ends up gravely falling apart. But perhaps that is the point. A film about a real life struggle to adapt a book that doesnt have much suspense in it, and the peril of trying to work some fictional thriller plotlines in at the last minute. Either way, hats off to Jonze and Kauffman for once again bringing us an audaciously unconventional idea and tearing down the box. All this from the adaptive skills of an orchid.

~.c//0ry

A brilliant, original film, hilariously funny almost all the way through, which is why the end seems disjointed and a bit out of sync with the rest of the film...until you consider McKee's advice to Kaufman, the success of Donald's cliched script, and the pressure on Charlie Kaufman (in the film) to finish the script. So it suddenly becomes a thriller, there's drama added to a genuinely moving story and characters, and it seems to rush towards its ending unprepared. But that's the whole postmodern element of the film - is it deliberately bad and pat (like the Player - a much lesser film that doesn't stand up after repeated viewing)?

Anyway, Cage is fantastic in this - really if the Oscars were about acting, he should have got it for articulating two characters brilliantly. After the mess of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it's some achievement.

A must see - but you need to engage your brain for this!