Review of Adaptation. (2002) by Ben L — 22 May 2014

I've never written a screenplay, but I can only imagine the challenge Charlie Kaufman faced when trying to adapt a screenplay out of a book about flowers. However it takes a truly twisted mind to write a screenplay about yourself writing a screenplay adapted from said book. Is that mind-bending enough for you? Well, what if I told you he also included an imaginary twin brother so that the character of Charlie could actual converse with other aspects of his own personality? It's all so meta that I can't help getting wrapped up in this insane story. I loved how, each time Charlie in the film would receive an insight or suggestion for his story you'd find it in the film. He is told never to use voice-over, and then suddenly the voice-over track disappears for a long period of time. He's told you must find a way to add excitement in the end, and we find ourselves in a cat-and-mouse chase with lives threatened. Every cliche finds its way into Adaptation, yet because it is about someone who hates those cliches and would like to avoid them, it becomes comical when he finds they are the only way to escape his case of writer's block.

Nicolas Cage is not an actor I like very much, but here he is brilliantly neurotic as the lead. He pulls off both aspects of Kaufman's personality (Charlie and Don) with a nice contrast between the 2. I have some self-esteem issues myself, so seeing his struggles living life with all that fear and lack of confidence was quite compelling. Meryl Streep was typical Meryl. She tells a lot of the story with her eyes because you can read longing, desperation, and joy all with a single expression from her. Susan Orlean might not like what her character did in this film, but she'd be hard-pressed to complain about having a master like Meryl Streep in the role. And then there's Chris Cooper, who is playing the over-the-top John Laroche. Perhaps part of the credit needs to go to the writing for giving him such an amazingly off-the-wall character to play, but still he did a great job of it. Laroche seems so obsessed it almost appears to be bordering on insanity, yet somehow despite his craziness and his less-than-appealing appearance, Chris Cooper manages to show a heart inside. It sounds crazy, but you can kind of see how someone might fall for him, because he has the passion that the other characters in the story are so desperately seeking.

I think where I was less impressed with Adaptation was in the middle. There seemed a long section where not much was happening, which I think was supposed to reflect the frustration Charlie was experiencing when the story wasn't coming to him. Yet there are points where I get bored with the mundane aspects of Charlie's life. Particularly disappointing are most of the scenes that seem to be inserted to reference Charlie's non-existent love life. I didn't find the love interest Amelia to be an engaging character, and I never had a proper frame of reference to know exactly what the status was of their relationship and how I was supposed to feel when it broke down. I had similar problems when we spent scenes in the office of Charlie's agent, they just felt irrelevant. Again I imagine all this can be explained away if you look at it from the aspect of the real life Charlie just describing what was going on in his real life when trying to make his adaptation, but there reaches a point where that excuse wears thin. Yes, I know adapting a story about flowers is going to have low points, but you've set up this interesting premise where the flower has become insignificant compared to the stories of the 3 people, so let's spend more time actually building up those 3 characters. Still, Adaptation is a singular film in it's audacious method of creating a script when it seems utterly impossible. I doubt I'll be watching it frequently in the future, but it's definitely a high-quality film with an outrageous concept I must applaud.