Adaptation - Page 2

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Page 2

Jan 14, 2003

Okay. Following still? Interested in this story?

Well, don't be interested because this story isn't the story of the movie that is "Adaptation". That story is the story that actually opens the film: A screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) has been hired to adapt the aforementioned book to the silver screen.

Here's the thing: He can't. And to make matters worse his producer, Valerie (Tilda Swinton), is after him for the first draft of the screenplay he is supposed to be working on. 'Where's the first draft'? she asks. How the first page?

Charlie, simply, is screwed.

And to make matters even worse he is in agony over whether or not he should reward himself because, well, he is trying to do his writing. (As a writer I can so relate.)

And. . . to make matters worse there is the matter of Charlie's brother, Donald (also played by Cage). Donald is basically Charle's opposite: He does not have Charlie's ethics, his morals, his tases, his intellect, his work ethic. And. . . he admits all of his. And then some: The only thing he wants from life is to write a potboiler, which will make him filthy rich.

Of course he has a plan when it comes to fulfilling this goal: He attends the screenwriting classes and seminars of one Robert McKee (Brian Cox), who is about as immoral as Donald.

And to make matters. . . even worse Donald announces, as Charlie considers suicide because he cannot write his script, he has sold a screenplay for a million dollars.

But, wait: There's more: Charlie turns his desperation into a fixation on Susan Orlean--you remember her, right?--and to address this he goes to New York, shadows her, stalks, her, and then, just when he gets up his nerve to even talk to her, he is forced to follow her to Florida, where she is to interview Laroche, who smells, who smokes, who has missing front teeth, and who, may, in fact, be the missing link.

I know: Why I am telling you all of this? Because, simply, not much of it has to do with the actual plot of "Adaptation".

That's right: None of it has to do with the film.

And just when things couldn't get weirder (worse?), well. . . they do. And that is all I will tell you about the actual film. Because the odds are good if you go to see this film you won't see the same film I did.

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