Lying on his belly in
front of his laptop is internet film critic Jordan Rosa. Shaved
head, bare feet, fat. He cant figure out how to interpret
Spike Jonzes latest picture, Adaptation, into a review that
does the film justice and yet makes a statement of his own. The
film at once thrills, bewilders and infuriates. Yet one feels that
the director is always in control and every emotion that ripples
through the seats (both good and bad) is released with sure intentions.
The picture (written
by Charlie Kaufman) concerns screenwriter Charlie Kaufmans
(Nicolas Cage) journey through adapting and unadaptable book, Susan
Orleans The Orchid Thief. Now, I worry that journey isnt
the right word. If Kaufman was on a journey this could just be another
behinds the scenes of the film industry (Charlie hates that term)
flick, but like Kaufman and Jonzes last picture, Being John
Malkovich, this film also lives to break the rules.
Adaptation comes up
against the rules of screenwriting, pulls back the curtain on them,
and even while mocking them bows to at least the majesty of them
if not their usefulness. When we meet Charlie he is desperately
against selling out in his new screenplay. He sweats and obsesses
over his thinning hair while explaining that he wont artificially
pump a narrative into Orleans lyrical book about the illegal
world of endangered flower smuggling.
He comes home from the
meeting to his twin brother Donald (also Cage) who has decided to
follow in his brothers footsteps with the help of Robert McKees
book Story and his weekend seminar. For Charlie there could be no
worse way to go about writing a script than learning limiting rules
and then following them, but Donald cant understand or even
see Charlies distain for aspirations of box office success
and fame. As Charlie see it, McKee is for hacks. I cant help
but think of my own copy of Story on my own bookshelf and the wisdom
I thought I had gleaned from it.
Charlie obsesses about
every little thing both in his script and his life. Fueled by her
picture on the jacket of the book, Olean (Meryl Streep) becomes
the focus of Charlies masturbatory fantasies as well as his
envy. Every emotion from Charlie is equally complex. Excitement
can only come when tinged with doubt, confidence only comes with
self-hate, and contempt only comes with pity.
In fact all parts of
the film come with multiple levels. The obvious meaning of the title
Adaptation concerns Charlies attempt to adapt Orleans
book, but thats only the outer most layer. The Orchid Thief
muses on the orchids and to a greater extent lifes ability
to and need to adapt. Meanwhile, the screenplay and therefore the
film itself adapts itself to be able to survive as a viable screenplay.
What I realize I have
neglected to mention (Im horrible at synopsizing stories)
is that the screenplay that Charlie works on is the screen play
he eventually turns in to the studio. Like a video camera pointed
at a television screen Adaptation continuously folds in on itself
in an endless self reflexive loop. The picture adapts the ideas
of The Orchid Thief if not the book itself while expanding on the
themes.
Of course my only knowledge
of The Orchid Thief comes from the film, but there is really a book
called The Orchid Thief and there really is a Susan Orlean. For
all I know the real book is a bad McBainesqe detective thriller
and thats part of the joke but Im a film writer not
a book reviewer. What Im failing to explain is odd relationship
this picture has with reality. Adaptation was written by Charlie
Kaufman (both he and his brother get screen credit). The curious
thing is that according to all accounts the real Charlie doesnt
have a twin brother named Donald. Not only that but seeming protagonist
of Orleans book, John Laroche (Chris Cooper), is obsessed
with who will play him in the movie. I say seeming protagonist because
from the excepts we hear from her book, Orlean writes herself into
Laroches story just as Charlie writes himself into hers.
The film itself is an
impossible film about adapting an impossible book. Film does action,
it doesnt do ideas but the film is about the ideas of a writer
working on a script about ideas. None of it makes sense and thats
the beauty of the script. Just as the movie is about grind to a
halt along with Charlies attempts to write the script this
absurd film does the most absurd thing. It sends Charlie Kaufman,
the latest champion of antitraditional screenwriting, to one of
Robert McKees screenwriting seminars. McKee (Brian Cox) is
the industrys hottest screenwriting guru. The thing is, McKee
really is the industrys hottest screenwriting guru.
The problem Im
finding here comes from the fact that Kaufman has put me, the film
reviewer, in the same position he put himself in when he accepted
the adaptation assignment. Even as I try to write about his endless
self-reflections and self-doubts I am forced into self-reflexive
doubt of my own. From Charlies way of thinking, attending
McKees seminar reeks of desperate selling out. McKee tells
Charlie that no matter how bad a film is as long as it has an interesting
ending the audience will love it. Charlie (at least the Cage version
or I guess more properly Charlies version of Charlie) couldnt
care less about entertaining an audience.
Charlies sit down
with McKee signals that not only Charlie has sold out but it also
that the film has sold out too. The films entire third act
is a huge deadpan sell out playing on the worst thriller clichés
and everything else that Charlie hates. The greatest trick that
this film plays will come from the critics themselves. A sure-fire
critical success, Adaptation will be praised by the very same critics
that loved pictures like The Sixth Sense, that feature nothing but
an interesting ending, even while Kaufman points out how hollow
films like that are. My only complaint might be that the picture
doesnt sell out enough, but maybe thats the beauty.
When satire becomes too obvious it becomes parody and Adaptation
teeters right on edge.
Is this film a lesson,
a message or just a story? Which parts are a goof which arent?
I fear Ive come up short in my review. Obviously not by the
world count as Ive probably gone on too long. I dont
know if Ive come up short when it comes to my analysis of
the film chances are I have on only one flawed showing. But what
I have truly come up short on is that I have sold out in my review.
Every hack reviewer will start his or her hack review turning a
mirror on the hall of mirrors writing their review in the films
self-reflexive voice. And I realize now that one cant help
but sell out and follow the rules when a deadline looms or maybe
this whole self-reflexive thing was more self-aware than that and
I always knew it was the hack move. You tell me whats real.
Are you more or less of a hack when you know you are selling
out? Donald doesnt know he has sold out, Charlie knows he
has. Whos worse?
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