Adaptation (2002)

Right...

So I have made it through Adaptation - I must admit that at the on-set I was scared (in fact I think I started this movie a few years ago), my fear is based on a single actor I can't stomach, namely Nicholas Cage (I think it could be the seemingly unending sinus problem, like a surfer trapped in the BFG's body), and to boot you have this drunk feeling as you are seeing double, Nic is playing twin brother's, he's in stereo... but by the end this movie is wholly satisfying!

The premise, we commence in fact... The character Charlie Kauffman (as written by the scriptwriter Charlie Kauffman, he who has penned whacky masterpieces like Being John Malkovich & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) is assigned the task of adapting the non-fiction novel The Orchid Thief (written by Susan Orlean) into a film script - this is all fact. Charlie struggles hugely in this task, and what we are watching on screen is the result of his attempt to adapt the seemingly unadaptable, and move past his writer's block - the movie documents this struggle, it documents the core of the novel and then it all gets Kauffman'ned, as the waters of fact are muddied and fiction takes over.

There's a fake twin Kauffman brother (Cage-squared), fake versions of actual people, with Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper playing versions of the real life author Susan Orlean and John Laroche respectively (while totally deviating from the actual people into complete creations), Charlie Kauffman's creation of Charlie Kauffman (is he really like this, or does he just hate himself, when the real Susan Orlean had doubts about the way she was portrayed, she was pointed to the way Charlie portrays himself), cameos by John Malkovich, Catherine Keener and John Cusack on the set of Being John Malkovich, and a whole heap of fantasy of a world dreamed up after the actual book he is supposed to be adapting ends - it's all pretty fucked up! As it should be when Kauffman is at hand!

When reviewing Hitchcock a week ago, I expressed my interest in the process of film-making and how I enjoyed movies that documented this. Adaptation is a hybrid of this kind of genre, exploring the writing process of making a watchable movie, watching the process as it exists in, and as, the movie - it is actually quite stunning.

Cage, Streep and Cooper would all be nominated for their performances in the movie (and all are deserving, even Cage... I admit that while I don't like him on a deeply personal level which will have me switching movies off, it is only him as a person which bugs me, he actually is a rather good actor) - Meryl Streep is fantastic, excercising a level of abandon that is refreshing in so far as that the character is not the larger than life Meryl Streep we have come to know, Susan Orlean is quite a timid character in fact, but there are glimpses of wild abandon superbly brought to life during the character's arc.

But it is Chris Cooper who is the revelation in the role of John Laroche, we've all seen him in many movies, but not like this, missing his front teeth and seemingly deranged, yet completely likeable, as the titular Orchid Thief of Susan Orleans novel - Cooper would go on to win in the Best Supporting Actor category.

Both Charlie and Donald Kauffman were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. This begs the question, is it an Adaptation? It is an adaptation, but it is totally an original screenplay, veering so far from the source work, and including blatant fictional elements and unrelated material, that it is scary to even consider it an adaptation - and yet it still is, because how many really true adaptations are there? There is always a level of poetic license required to successfully translate a book to screen...

(And let's not forget that Donald Kauffman, who has been nominated for an Academy Award, does not actually exist...)

Kauffman is pretty much a screen-writing genius - this Adaptation is highly recommended!

9 Movies down and a whole heap to go, this is the first from the 75th Annual Academy Awards, the best of the 2002 movie season - Well deserved win for Chris Cooper! It appears that in 2002 I was quite actively watching movies, as of the selection below there will be only four I have not seen before, but I sure is N'joying the new and the old!

nuff said...