Adaptation movie review

Rating: 8.2/10

Adaptation follows the story of Charlie Kaufman, a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to be original and not follow all those Hollywood clichés. He one day was hired to adapt a nonfiction book called The Orchid Thief by Susan Orleans into a screenplay. The book’s about John Laroche who is passionately in love with plants and flowers. As Charlie struggles with his adaptation, he turns to his less talented brother, Donald Kaufman, who is easy-going and doesn’t take everything too seriously.

However, the plot of this movie is much more than that. In the real world, the real Charlie Kaufman was asked to adapt Susan Orleans’s The Orchid Thief and this film is basically what Charlie Kaufman came up with. He makes himself the main character and creates a fictional twin brother, Donald Kaufman. It was very interesting to see how this film would play out. And it did not disappoint.

As for performances in this film, Nicholas Cage turned out to be surprisingly good. I wasn’t sure at first. But this has to be one of his finest roles to date. He portrayed both Charlie and Donald with such emotions and both of their emotions are completely opposite. Charlie is most of the time depressed and sad while Donald is living the time of life, learning as he goes along. I read somewhere on the internet that Nic Cage ignored all his acting instincts and played the part as the director asked him to. Maybe if he did that in every movie he stars in, we would have more good movies from Nicholas Cage…

Meryl Streep stars as Susan Orlean , a lonely  writer looking for something to be passionately in love about. She then writes a book about John Loroche, played by Chris Cooper, who has a passion for flowers. Susan Orlean writes about John’s life while not being able to live her own. They both did a great job portraying these characters especially Chris Cooper who won an Oscar for his portrayal of John Laroche.

This movie is a hard one to criticize. Most of the film, we get to experience the way Charlie Kaufman lives.  It was slow, boring, and depressing. Until that last act came, where Charlie seeks the help of Donald, the movie then suddenly gets faster and falls into a whole lot of Hollywood clichés which is the way Donald would adapt his screenplay. Basically the film was separated into two parts, the first is the Charlie part, slow and depressing, and the Donald part, fast, silly, over the top, and sometimes fun.

It was hard for me to truly enjoy the movie. It was too slow at times and too fast at times. There was nothing in the middle. But I think this is the way the writer, Charlie Kaufman, wanted his film to be; to be a parody of big Hollywood blockbusters. Although, it was hard for me to enjoy this movie, the movie had a huge impact on me; the message the film is sending and the characters in this movie. Everything is so intriguing and thought provoking. 

The theme and sub themes of this movie are so intriguing that I didn’t even care if I enjoyed the movie. I was fascinated by the real Charlie Kaufman, the way he chose to write his movie. He is a genius. This script is purely original. Charlie is so absorbed into searching for meaning, purpose, structure, and recognition that he forgets to actually live. He analyzes life. He thinks about what he should do in situations but doesn’t have the courage to do it. While Susan tried to see why John is so passionate about these flowers, but in the end, she just found that it was meaningless to her.

 I think what the movie is trying to say is it was meaningless to find the ghost orchid. The ghost orchid symbolizes the goal of any passionate life. However, Susan’s ghost orchid wasn’t about flowers. There are different “ghost orchid” for everyone. And to find the ghost orchid, it must come from out heart. You are what you love not what loves you.

There is always someone in the world that you want to be. You don’t want to be your old boring self as Charlie turns to his twin brother and loses his originality. Donald then adapts his book the way he would have adapted. This film is also about being true to yourself, be proud about who you are as everybody is different and unique in their own ways.  You are the main character in your life, not anybody else.

But to be true to yourself is often times a hard thing to do. There is always someone or something that will want to hold you down. The writer of this movie symbolizes this by creating the character of Donald. In my opinion, Donald represents the demands of Hollywood. As it is so hard to be original in Hollywood these days, writers and directors just cave in and turn into a clichéd and boring film maker who makes movies for money.

What I admire about Charlie Kaufman is that the statement I mentioned above is certainly not the case with him. He always comes up with pure and original ideas with his films including: Eternal sunshine the spotless mind, Synecdoche New York, and this film. This film is so twisted around the idea of reality and fiction that it has me confused sometimes. Charlie Kaufman creates himself as the main character. He then adapts screenplay about adapting screenplay. That’s just how much original Charlie Kaufman is.

As I mentioned, the film has so many heartfelt themes and subthemes. It had an impact on me after watching the film. But the fact still remains, I didn’t enjoy this movie while watching the movie. I did enjoy it to a certain extent, but not that much. I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I wasn’t able to enjoy both the message of the film and the actual film. But all in all, Adaptation is still a solid, well directed, and certainly well-written film. It’s an original piece of work by Charlie Kaufman. I urge you to see all of Charlie Kaufman’s written work and directorial work. He is one of the remaining filmmakers in the industry that is still original today.