Adaptation (film)

Adaptation (stylized as Adaptation.) is a 2002 American metafictional comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. It features an ensemble cast led by Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Chris Cooper, with Tilda Swinton, Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Ron Livingston in supporting roles.

Kaufman based Adaptation on his struggles to adapt Susan Orlean's 1998 nonfiction book The Orchid Thief while suffering from writer's block. It involves elements adapted from the book, plus fictitious elements, including Kaufman's twin brother (also credited as a writer for the film) and a romance between Orlean and John Laroche (Cooper). It culminates in completely invented elements, including versions of Orlean and Laroche three years after the events of The Orchid Thief.

Adaptation received widespread critical acclaim for its direction, screenplay, humor, and the performances of Cage, Cooper, and Streep. It received awards at the 75th Academy Awards, 60th Golden Globe Awards, and 56th British Academy Film Awards, with Cooper winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Kaufman winning the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. A British Film Institute poll ranked it one of the thirty best films of the 2000s.

Plot

Self-loathing screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is hired to write an adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. He struggles with anxiety, social phobia, depression, and low self-esteem. His twin brother, Donald, has moved into his house and is freeloading there. Donald decides to become a screenwriter like Charlie and attends seminars by screenwriting guru Robert McKee.

Charlie, who rejects formulaic scriptwriting, wants to ensure that his script is a faithful adaptation but comes to feel that the book lacks a usable narrative and is impossible to turn into a film, which leaves him with a serious case of writer's block. Already well past his deadline with Columbia Pictures and despairing of writing his script with self-reference, Charlie travels to New York City to discuss the screenplay with Orlean directly. Too shy and socially awkward to speak with Orlean upon arriving at her office and after receiving the surprising news that Donald's spec script for a cliché psychological thriller, The 3, is selling for six or seven figures, Charlie resorts to attending McKee's seminar in New York and asks him for advice. Charlie ends up asking Donald to join him in New York to assist with the story structure.

Donald, who is confident socially, pretends to be Charlie and interviews Orlean but finds her responses suspicious. He and Charlie follow Orlean to Florida, where she meets John Laroche, the orchid-stealing protagonist of the book and her secret lover. It is revealed that the Seminole wanted the ghost orchid to manufacture a mind-altering drug that causes fascination. Laroche introduces the drug to Orlean. After Laroche and Orlean catch Charlie observing them taking the drug and having sex, Orlean decides that Charlie must be killed to prevent him from exposing them.

Orlean forces Charlie to drive to the swamp at gunpoint, intending to kill him. Charlie and Donald escape and hide in the swamp, where they resolve their differences. Laroche accidentally shoots Donald. Charlie and Donald drive off but collide head-on with a ranger's truck. Donald is ejected through the windshield and dies moments later, but Charlie is saved by the airbag and runs into the swamp to hide. There he is spotted by Laroche, who is killed by an alligator before he can kill Charlie. Orlean is later arrested.

Charlie reconciles with his mother as he calls to inform her of Donald's death. He later tells his former love interest, Amelia, that he loves her. She responds that she loves him too. Charlie finishes the script, which ends with him announcing in voice-over that the script is finished and that, for the first time, he is filled with hope.

Cast

thumb|250px|right|Nicolas Cage portrays Charlie and Donald Kaufman through [[Split screen (video production)|split screen.]]

Nicolas Cage as Charlie and Donald Kaufman
Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean
Chris Cooper as John Laroche
Tilda Swinton as Valerie Thomas
Cara Seymour as Amelia Kavan
Brian Cox as Robert McKee
Judy Greer as Alice
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Caroline Cunningham
Ron Livingston as Marty Bowen
Jay Tavare as Matthew Osceola

G. Paul Davis as Russell
Jim Beaver as Ranger Tony
Doug Jones as Augustus Margary
Gary Farmer as Buster Baxley
Peter Jason as defense attorney
Bob Yerkes as Charles Darwin

Cage played the dual role of Charlie and his fictional brother, Donald. He turned down the role of Norman Osborn / Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002) in favor of the film. He took the role for a $5 million salary, and wore a fatsuit during filming.

Streep expressed strong interest in the role of Susan Orlean before being cast, John Turturro was approached to portray John Laroche. Cooper strongly considered turning down Laroche, but accepted it after his wife urged him to. Albert Finney, Christopher Plummer, Terence Stamp, and Michael Caine were considered for the role of Robert McKee, but McKee personally suggested Brian Cox to filmmakers.

John Cusack, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich, Lance Acord, Thomas Patrick Smith, and Spike Jonze have uncredited cameos as themselves in scenes where Charlie Kaufman is on the set of Being John Malkovich, which he also wrote. Additional cameos include director Curtis Hanson as Orlean's husband and David O. Russell as a New Yorker journalist.

Production

Development

The idea of a film adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief dates to 1994. Fox 2000 purchased the film rights in 1997, eventually selling them to Jonathan Demme, who set the project at Columbia Pictures. Charlie Kaufman was hired to write the script, but struggled with the adaptation and writer's block. He eventually created a script from his experience in adaptation, exaggerating events and inventing a twin brother. He put Donald Kaufman's name on the script and dedicated the film to him. By September 1999, Kaufman had written two drafts of the script; he turned in a third draft in November 2000.

Kaufman said, "The idea of how to write the film didn't come to me until quite late. It was the only idea I had, I liked it, and I knew there was no way it would be approved if I pitched it. So I just wrote it and never told the people I was writing it for. I only told Spike Jonze, as we were making Being John Malkovich and he saw how frustrated I was. Had he said I was crazy, I don't know what I would have done." He also said, "I really thought I was ending my career by turning that in!"

Adaptation went on fast track in April 2000, with Kaufman making some revisions. Scott Brake of IGN gave the script a positive review in June 2000, as did Drew McWeeny of Ain't It Cool News in October. Columbia Pictures committed to North American distribution only after Intermedia came aboard to finance the film in exchange for international distribution rights.

Filming

Filming started in late March 2001 in Los Angeles and finished by June. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars, calling it "bewilderingly brilliant and entertaining". He wrote that the film "leaves you breathless with curiosity, as it teases itself with the directions it might take. To watch the film is to be actively involved in the challenge of its creation." He later added the film to his "Great Movies" canon, and in 2009, he named it one of the best films of the decade. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a four-star rating, writing, "Screenwriting this smart, inventive, passionate and rip-roaringly funny is a rare species. So all praise to Charlie Kaufman, working with director Spike Jonze to create the most original and outrageous film comedy since the two first teamed on Being John Malkovich, in 1999." Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe wrote, "This is epic, funny, tragic, demanding, strange, original, boldly sincere filmmaking. And the climax, the portion that either sinks the entire movie or self-critically explains how so many others derail, is bananas."

David Ansen of Newsweek wrote that Meryl Streep had not "been this much fun to watch in years", while Mike Clark of USA Today gave a largely negative review, mainly criticizing the ending: "Too smart to ignore but a little too smugly superior to like, this could be a movie that ends up slapping its target audience in the face by shooting itself in the foot." Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "Adaptation is almost juvenile showing off—daring to make a film that is in search of a script".

Accolades

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

! Award

! Category

! Nominee(s)

! Result

! Ref.

| rowspan="4"| Academy Awards

| Best Actor

| Nicolas Cage

| align="center" rowspan="4"|

| Best Supporting Actor

| Chris Cooper

| Best Supporting Actress

| Meryl Streep

| Best Adapted Screenplay

| Charlie Kaufman