Adaptação

Following his success as screenwriter for 'Being John Malcovich', Charlie Kaufman is given the job of adapting Susan Orlean's book 'The Orchid Thief' which she expanded from a piece in The New Yorker that she wrote on the obsessive orchid hunter John Laroche. While Charlie struggles to adapt the book into a workable film, his twin brother, Donald, writes a successful script around serial killers. The more Charlie struggles to get a story from the book the more the stories and his life start to intertwine.

I wanted to see this film because I had enjoyed BJM and was interested to see what Jonze did next. I came to it with a vague knowledge of the plot but nowhere near enough o have expectations. For the majority of the film, the different style and presentation kept me deeply interested. The way the different stories occurred in different times and places worked a lot better than I would have expected it to. The plot gets increasingly difficult to follow and you'll get as much as you want from it. For those just looking for a simple story then you'll have a nice neat resolution, if you want more then more is there for you as you try to work out what part of the film is real and what part isn't.

I came away with mixed feelings. I felt that the ending was not as clever as it thought it was and didn't give a good ending for those who weren't happy to accept things at face value. I didn't feel let down I just felt that the last section of the film stepped down a gear rather than up. I know that this is the point that Jonze was making perhaps, by allowing Donald's derided ending come to live and be the replacement for Charlie's original aim. But it didn't totally do it for me. Up till this section I was hooked and felt that the various stories all worked to form a mix of drama and comedy. However the end does a disservice to it's characters.

Cage shows that the recent cr*p he has been in doesn't mean he can't act (just that he doesn't). He really brings his two characters to life and plays them so well that it is easy to forget that it is the same person in both roles. Cooper is wonderful and deserved his Oscar for support. Streep, as much as I dislike her, was very good and brought that difficult character out – although I did feel she was the one most betrayed by the film's end.

Overall this was an interesting film that worked in most areas. It's difference and it's inventiveness were such that I wanted to keep watching. However I, and I know others will disagree, felt that this uniqueness was not well served by the end of the film. I understand that it was not meant to exist in the same way as the majority of the film but I still felt that the ending didn't meet the standard set by the rest of the film.

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.

Incredible.

Charlie Kaufman might just be the most genius screenwriter (I daren't say ever) at the moment. I mean, trying to adapt a book for a screenplay, not succeeding, yet in the process writing a screenplay about how you can't seem to adapt this book for a screenplay. Oh yeah, and also being helped by your not existing twin brother, and crediting him as co-writer, and being nominatad for an Oscar together with him.

Is anyone following this?

Kaufman seems to be the master of destroying the line between reality and fiction.

I kind of have a hard time saying anything about this movie, because I don't know what to say. You should just go and say it. There's nothing like it.

If you liked Being John Malkovic you wil definitely love this. If you hated BJM you might still like it. It doesn't have the absurdity and surreality of BJM. The story is just incredibly intelligently written.

Even though the movie is about how Kaufman is unable to adapt this book, he actually succeeds in doing just that in the process.

Jesus, I'm still totally stunned.

Jonze does do a very good job once again. But the direction is just outshined by the story...

Jonze and Kaufman have pulled it off again. Witty, surreal, brilliant, inventive, amazing and most of all; the most inspirational film I have ever seen. One of the best and definitive films of the 21st Century.

Nicolas Cage has two parts in this film, Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman, twin brothers. Both screen writers. Charlie is writing a screenplay based on a book called "The Orchid Thief" {a real book}. But nothing happens in it. He is finding it hard to stay true to the book when there's no events in the book. Writer's block. Meanwhile, Donald is storming through his screenplay which is about a serial killer with split personalities – a theme regularly used in cinema today. This is a take on how and why there are so many teen horrors with crappy ideas, while films that would appeal to a smaller audience are harder to conjure. During the course of Adaptation. we see Charlie's screenplay "The Orchid Thief" showing as it would if it became a film, featuring the author; Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) and the books protagonist, John Laroche (Chris Cooper).

Charlie Kaufman {the character} is one of the most relatable characters in cinema for me. He too is looking for inspiration, something to help achieve his dreams, but he can't seem to find it. He waits for something to come and change his life for the good but never takes the opportunity. He worries about the most insignificant things that aren't life-changing. But the difference to me and Kaufman, is that he finds the way. In the end he has learnt his lesson and learnt how to live life. I am going to take the same advice. His narration gives us a very detailed guide of his feelings and thoughts.

Nic Cage gives a redeeming performance and one of the best of his career as both Charlie and Donald. They are very different personality-wise, Charlie being nervous and frustrated, while Donald is almost too upbeat about everything. His chemistry with himself is incredible its hard to believe they are the same. Chris Cooper delivers an Oscar winning performance, and it sure was worthy. Very fun character, taking away his seriousness whenever he should be serious. Meryl Streep is also flawless, giving a performance which she shows her moods appropriate to the scene.

Spike Jonze gives us a very interesting directional view. With a lot of tie-in's with Being John Malkovich (his previous film) to show us his own little world, where anything can happen. There are also a lot of tie-in's with the film itself in which Kaufman comes up with an idea for the script in the film, when it actually happens in this film (while his ideas are for "The Orchid Thief"). And, of course, there is the strange factor in which Charlie Kaufman has included himself in his screenplay… and in the film, the character Charlie Kaufman has included himself in his own screenplay. It is truly hard to believe how Kaufman comes up with this stuff.

This may lack the dark style of "Being John Malkovich", but they are in the same world. Don't miss this moving comedy and hilarious drama. I can't help but get lost in its wonder.

10/10

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