‘Adaptation’ – A writer’s nightmare becomes
a filmgoer’s treat

There’s something refreshing about a movie like “Adaptation,” not just because it is bold and different, but also because it has heavy elements of truth and fiction. I have never seen a movie that reflected real life so well, yet is able to be completely off-the-wall and bizarre at the same time. We are witness to the beginning of time, the end of the dinosaurs, the birth of humanity, and one poor sucker stuck writing a screenplay he can’t write—and it all works.

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) has become a “name” screenwriter thanks to his unique work on “Being John Malkovich.” He has just been approached to write a screenplay based on “The Orchid Thief,” a book by New Yorker writer Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her encounters with John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a horticulturist infamous for stealing rare orchids in the Florida Everglades. The only problem is that the book contains so much about orchids, yet so little story, that the potential for a screenplay is virtually nil. Frustrated, Charlie writes what he can, while he struggles with his social anxiety and lack of self-confidence. Meanwhile, his twin brother Donald (Cage) is writing a nonsensical by-the-numbers serial killer thriller that gets infinitely more attention than Charlie’s efforts. Will Charlie finish his screenplay? What really happened between Orlean and Laroche? And will writers ever stop using worn out clichés like using open-ended questions as cliffhangers to the plot?

In reality, Charlie Kaufman is the screenwriter who wrote “Adaptation.” One can only guess exactly how much reality was injected into this story, but everyone will have a great time playing Kaufman’s game. The problems that his characters have are realistic, but still manage to be hilarious. Writers, especially, will get a kick out of it, having suffered from the same creative problems as Charlie. “I’ve written myself into my screenplay,” the onscreen Kaufman laments. “How incredibly self-indulgent and narcissistic.” You can’t help but laugh at such self-awareness.

A major topic of the film is passion. Everyone is in a search for something to be passionate about, which leads to the title: everyone must adapt to something to survive. Haven’t we all felt like that? We can really relate to the characters, with Charlie searching for originality, or with Susan Orlean trying to find anything to have passion for. These are real problems that real people have, and it’s stark reality like that which keeps the audiences glued to the screen.

“Adaptation” is a daring, devious little film, unafraid to expose pure emotion. The script’s sheer brilliance is always present. At one point, Charlie asks a scriptwriting guru how you would write a screenplay where “not much happens, like in real life.” On the contrary, everything happens in “Adaptation,” and it all happens in a maddening, yet touching way.