Adaptation

In the film Get Shorty, Delroy Lindo's character
describes a screenwriter as merely someone you hire to fill in "all the
commas and shit." And in Robert Altman's The Player, a studio
executive ponders the need for screenwriters altogether, while another
executive kills a writer and no one notices. Despite being the foundation for
just about everything seen on a movie screen, writers are down on the far end
of the totem pole in Hollywood. With this rampant lack of respect, is it any
wonder that so much of the work turned out by Hollywood screenwriters is the
same old dreck? I mean, why waste your time, energy, and emotions creating a
truly original work of art when it's just going to get crapped on by some
producer trying to appeal to the masses? Isn't it easier just to photocopy
what everyone else is doing, just the way Syd Field tells you, and hand in
your 117 pages and be done with it?

When Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter
of Being John Malkovich, was given the assignment to adapt Susan
Orlean's The Orchid Thief into a major motion picture, the battle
between his desire to stay true to Orlean's prose and Hollywood's desire for
a commercially viable star vehicle nearly drove him to the point of madness.
After struggling and fighting with it, Kaufman, out of desperation, turned
his own internal battle into his script. Suddenly, the film became Adaptation,
a chronicle of his own effort to adapt The Orchid Thief, featuring
himself as the main character (portrayed by Nicholas Cage, in the best
performance of his career).

It's an out-there concept, and not an easy one to pull
off, but it works. The feeling one gets is that the film is creating itself
right in front of us: the film's false-start opening is later revealed to be
Charlie's desperate attempt to find a starting point for his script. We're
also shown scenes from The Orchid Thief, with Orlean (Meryl Streep)
and her subject, John LaRoche (the always excellent Chris Cooper); they're
given to us completely out of any sort of context, and seem to be Charlie's
aborted attempts to get his script moving.

Making things worse for Charlie, his twin brother
Donald (also Cage) has decided to become a screenwriter himself. He
immediately goes the Syd Field approach, attending seminars and breezing
through his script (a hilariously clichéd story about a serial killer with
multiple personalities -- "The only device more overdone than serial killers
is multiple personalities," Charlie moans). While Donald is getting raves
from the industry, Charlie is stuck staring at the blank page in his
typewriter.

Charlie begins to fixate on the photo of Orlean on her
book jacket, in a way that neatly mirrors Orlean's own fixation with LaRoche.
He wants to talk to her -- maybe a conversation with her can free up the
mental blockade he's erected for himself -- but his own insecurities hold him
back. And when he does attempt to make a connection with someone -- a waitress
at a coffee shop -- it ends in disaster. His feelings of shame and
self-loathing escalate, his deadline approaches, and his pages become no less
blank.

The performances are all-around spectacular, especially
from Cage. After years of snoring through Gone in 60 Seconds and Con
Air, it's amazing to remember just how good an actor he was -- and still is,
I suppose this shows. Chris Cooper is getting heavy Oscar buzz for his job as
John LaRoche, and deservedly so.

If Adaptation falters, it's in the last act,
when it just seems to run out of steam. Completely lost for an ending,
Charlie gives the script to Donald, who gives it the Hollywood touch: drugs,
sex, and car crashes (there are two car crashes in this film, and they are
among the most incredible I've ever seen; kudos to Spike Jonze). The joke is
certainly funny, and even a little touching in its own way, but it's a tad
too jarring up against the rest of the film.

I do have one question: who in their right mind thought
Charlie Kaufman would be a good choice to adapt The Orchid Thief in
the first place? No matter -- at least we get something good out of the deal.

Rating: ****