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Essay on Film Appreciation - ADAPTATION (2003)
"To begin ... to begin ... how to start?" Cage sits here, staring blankly at the paper on his desk, and one knows exactly how Charles Kaufman, both the screenwriter and main character in "Adaptation," feels. The film touches on a problem familiar to any creative entrepreneur -- the frequent, maddening and irresolvable plague of writer's block.
"Adaptation" is, quite literally, an "adaptation" of the book "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean. On one level, the film tells the story of John LaRoche (Chris Cooper) -- an unkempt, oddly thoughtful orchid poacher who gains the attention of New York writer Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), a reporter after a story. Orlean is struck by the toothless enigma of a man, whose poignant passion for flowers makes him different from anyone she has met before.
A movie about flowers, though? Hardly. The film's plot does not culminate here.
Under its flickering postmodern stylizations, its twitchy narcissism, its obsession about its author's own preciousness, Adaptation decodes into one thing: It is about someone trying desperately to do something he cannot. (Hunter 12) "What happens in the movie is actually pretty close to what happened in reality.
I intended to do a faithful adaptation of Susan Orlean's book. When I found I couldn't, I was very depressed about taking on a project I didn't know how to complete, confesses Kaufman. (The Washington Times D03)
Kaufman (Nicholas Cage) is the screenwriter given the responsibility of adapting "The Orchid Thief" into an epic film. Not wanting to inadequately represent Orlean's work, he spends days hunched over his typewriter -- coming up with nothing.
To make matters worse, Charles' twin brother Donald has just finished an overly dramatic debauchery of a Hollywood film, which he sells for the grandiose price of a million dollars....
