Review of Adaptation. (2002) by Edwin L — 01 Aug 2010

I first saw this movie over a year ago. That's the only time I saw it. I loved the first 2/3rds of the film. It was about screenplays, passion, and the film industry. Really compelling and interesting stuff. I was extremely disappointed in a sequence of events that went against what the movie was preaching about (Hollywood bashing, then the movie did a loop and had a "Hollywood" sequence of events in the plot). I felt angry that the movie would do such a thing. I enjoyed the end of the movie, but the aforementioned sequence really bugged me. My initial rating of the film was 4/10 on the IMDB. I later changed that to 3/5 on Netflix. On here, my first rating for the movie was 70%. Now I'm raising that rating to 100%. What I'm trying to say is that it took me over a year to fully appreciate this movie.

Who knows, maybe Cobb from Inception planted an idea in my head to slowly like this movie or maybe my attitude toward the movie changed and I finally "got it" and understand the film's agenda. I had a huge curiosity about this movie before I ever saw it. I admired it for its multiple Oscar nods and the poster always caught my attention. Plus, you really have to appreciate a cast with Cage, Cooper, and Streep.

More recently (a year ago) I learned about the talent behind the camera: Spike Jonze (director) and Charlie Kauffman (writer), who previously teamed up on Being John Malkovich. The plot to the movie is ingenious and perhaps one of the best premises ever: a screenwriter, Charlie Kauffman (Nicolas Cage), yes the same screenwriter that wrote the movie, is having trouble adapting a book into a screenplay. Meta-fiction!

One problem I had when I first watched this movie is that I didn't know what was fake and what was real. In perspective, only an idiot wouldn't know what stuff in the movie was fake. The movie follows Charlie's writing struggles in personal fashion, while his brother tries to find success by writing a generic horror flick. Whether or not Charlie was having trouble adapting the book, by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) to the screen, he got the job done. The book was about flowers, in particular flowers planted by the Chris Cooper character (in a wacky Oscar winning role). The film follows both of the Cage characters, the Streep character, and the Cooper character as they collide together in a train wreck adventure of a climax.

This is probably one of the 5 best screenplays ever written. It's honest, personal, original, creative, and a lot of fun. Nicolas Cage has never been better and Streep and Cooper turned in amazing performances. One of my favorite scenes was one where the Kauffman character sought help at screenwriting classes. This is an amazing film that has fun with reality while also showing how the joys of life can change from topic to topic very quickly. In addition, there has never been a better showcase of writer's block, ever. I guess Kauffman's writer's block must have been well worth it, or else he would have never come up with this script.