Review of Adaptation. (2002) by Stacie A — 10 Sep 2010
Charley Kaufman pens a tale about people fluttering around the periphery of their center or passion. Spike Jonze keeps the complex and multilayered story from becoming too convoluted and his sense of timing keeps the movie constantly moving.
Charley?s story make?s himself as the audience?s point of access. He plays out his most neurotic side while creating a fiction brother Donald who is not introspective, neurotic and is more instinctual.
Both Donald and Charley are played by Nicholas Cage. Charley take on the daunting task by movie executive, Tilda Swinton, of taking famous author, Meryl Streep?s, short essay and turning it into a full length movie script.
Out of work slacker Donald reads Streep?s work and instinctually picks feels that there?s something missing. He asks to help Charley research Meryl Streep in order to gain more insight into Streep and her story.
Her essay centers around Chis Cooper, an eccentric botanist with his two front teeth missing. Cooper?s character becomes the lynch pin of which the whole story orbits around. Coopers character is not likeable but gritty, well crafted and though provoking.
One of my favorite splinters of the story is when Donald decides he want to be a script writer, he convinces Charley to attend a script writing class held by Brian Cox (just his voice and presence add to any movie he?s in).
The somewhat clever point is the outline of his class on ?what not to do in a movie? is an outline of the script for Adaptation The combination of Kaufman?s simultaneous Big picture & dogs eye view script and Jonze?s mad skillz (sorry his last name just brings it out) meld together creating one of the most interesting cinematic experiences.
Highly recommended.
This review of Adaptation. (2002) was written by Stacie A on 10 Sep 2010.
Adaptation. has generally received very positive reviews.
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