Adaptation.
Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman
2002/USA
Beverly Detroit/Clinica Estetico/Good Machine/Intermedia/Magnet Productions/Propaganda Films
First viewing
#1044 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (Combined List – 2013 ver.)
IMDb users say 7.7/10; I say 8.0/10
[box] Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.
Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic
Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That’s what I decided a long time ago.[/box]
Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman have created a weird and wacky portal into the writer’s mind. Unfortunately, this was not a place I wanted to go particularly.
Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage) has an assignment to adapt Susan Orleans’s (Meryl Streep) sprawling novel The Orchid Thief for the screen. He has severe writer’s block compounded with depression and obsesses endlessly on his baldness, fatness, and lack of luck with the ladies. Charlie’s twin brother Donald (also Cage) lives with him and is writing a screenplay about a serial killer with multiple personalities. Donald is everything Charlie is not – cheerful, confident, and a lady killer.
Much of the movie is made up of Charlie’s fantasies about the relationship of Susan Orleans with the book’s protagonist orchid hunter John LaRoche (Chris Cooper). Eventually, he puts himself into their story.
I must start by noting that I have not read The Orchid Thief and don’t really know where elements of that book and the script intersect. I assume the film can be enjoyed without that information. I also need to say that I could find no fault with the production itself. The acting, in particular, is quite impressive. I expect good things out of Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper but Nicholas Cage was a revelation here. He nailed those twins. Spike Jones directing style fits Kaufman’s vision perfectly.
This is a unique and wildly creative film but also a self-indulgent one with a kind of winking hipster sensibility. It failed to engage me on an emotional or aesthetic level. I can see how folks that are interested in seeing the lengths to which a writer’s imagination can take him would love it.
Chris Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also received nominations in the categories of Best Actor (Cage) and Best Supporting Actress (Streep) The nomination of Charlie and Donald Kaufman for Best Adapted Screenplay made Donald the first truly fictitious person nominated for an Oscar.
Trailer
