Adaptation (Superbit Collection) Reviews

Don't be fooled by the movie's alleged esoterism. Director Spike Jonze and real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman still plan on telling a story that has universal appeal. Orlean's The Orchid Thief dealt with disappointment and people's perception of success and failure. In thematic response, the plot of Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt the Orchid Thief, whilst being surrounded by his infinitely more successful brother, Donald, revolves around disappointment too. These themes resonate with the viewer. We grow to equally identify with Donald's good-natured ignorance as protoganist Charlie's paranoid neurosis. If one thinks outside the box (which is an absolute requirement for watching this movie) is is apparent that Charlie and Donald represent different sides of the same person (the real-lifeKaufman).

Charlie reminded me of the Adam Sandler character, Barry Egan in Paul Thomas Anderson's vibrant and beautiful Punch-Drunk Love. Both are too afraid of themselves to love. Both are intelligent and decidedly kooky, and fall in love with exotic British women. Comparisons of the films as wholes have been made, but Punch-Drunk Love is decidedly more artsy and classical in sensibility...requiring patience to enjoy its beauties. Adaptation for all its weirdness is more bent on making the audience have a good time (but with brain and oddball sense of humor attached of course).

An argument exists that this movie's utterly odd and warped conclusion is a cop-out. Though i daren't spoil the surprise of what happens, the notion that Jonze and Kaufman express is one that requires deep consideration on the part of the film viewer. Is it a cop-out if there's a reason behind the cop-out? Afterall, we only know what we see. Can a movie rely on implications and get away with it? These are questions Jonze and Kaufman invite the viewer to pore over. Adaptation is a thought-provoking but still viscerally entertaining shot of pure cinema. Love it, then think about it afterwards.

Rating: 5 - Nic Cage Returns to Serious Acting; Kaufman & Jonze Score
Nicholas Cage was a favorite actor of mine early in his career when he took outside-the-movie-mainstream roles. After winning the Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas," he started making action adventure films and his heavyweight acting abilities were hidden. Those skills triumphantly return in "Adaptation," a brilliantly original film penned by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze, both of "Being John Malkovich" fame for their writing and directing. I needed to see "Being John Malcovich" several times in order to appreciate it to the fullest extent and I suspect the same is true for this film. There is so much going on in both films that one viewing is not enough to process it all. I wish I could say this about more films because I delight in the complexity of such a film and welcome discovering something new with each viewing. The plot revolves around screenwriter Kaufman's escalating difficulties with writing a screenplay adaptation of a book, "The Orchid Thief." This book is more of a meditation than a plot around a structural core which is what most books are. He can't write it, so in the ultimate irony, makes his own meditation about creativity, the artistic process and living inside and outside one's artistic creations. He pulls himself, a twin brother who does not exist in the real world (I suspect he is Kaufman's id), the novelist and the protagonist of the book into his screenplay as characters and brings them all together, fittingly enough, in the place all creation begins, the primordial swamp. Of course, his swamp is in Florida but close enough! Some viewers do not like this film. Other viewers positively hate it. This movie requires a lot of thinking on the part of the viewer and is also an extended metaphorical riff. If you don't like the idea of an entire film being a metaphorical riff about the creative process and the creative stew, then you will not like this film. If you do like that concept, you will love it.

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Adaptation (Superbit Collection)