Adaptation. (2002)
Directed by Spike Jonze
Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman and Orlean's book become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the other's.
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13 films that influenced Adaptation.
What critics say influenced Adaptation.
Where Fellini's film was an inwardly directed meditation on his own obsessions that revealed much about the maestro, Jonze's film is mired in the same kind of "inside Hollywood" pseudo-savviness that -- for me anyway -- made the much-praised Robert Altman film The Player an unpleasant, shallow, self-congratulatory affair.
…gazing in the tradition of The Player, Full Frontal or even Last Action Hero, Adaptation points to something more profound.
"Paris When It Sizzles," written by George Axelrod and starring William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, did it in 1963,1964, and that was based on an even earlier French film.
If you liked the surreal "Being John Malkovich," which Jonze also directed and Kaufman wrote, then you won't want to miss this collaboration.
Actually, there's a pretty good chance that the film's deeper concepts and more subtle satire will fly over the heads of many members of the audience, including those who loved Kaufman's quirky "Being John Malkovich."
Adaptation is the first feature from the team of director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman since their major popular success Being John Malkovich.
"Adaptation" comes from director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (see story, page 15), whose previous collaboration was "Being John Malkovich," starring John Malkovich as John Malkovich and John Cusack as a failed puppeteer who finds a secret passageway into John Malkovich's mind.
Charlie's brother (a character with no correlative in real life) Donald (Cage, again, in the finest twin performance since Jeremy Irons' in Dead Ringers ) is cocksure and woman-wise to Charlie's twitchy self-loathing in a way that reminds of the swinger/nebbish iteration of the Jekyll/Hyde interplay.
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It would be like writing a screenplay for Moby Dick based on Melville's chapter about the various whale species without Ahab or any of the crew.
Instead, like Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation.
Donald may be the dorkiest Tyler Durden figure in movies, and he embodies my two major objections to Fight Club, as pointed out by Charlie: The multiple-personality device is far overused and the story has to make sense backward as well as forward.
He very easily could have taken a Brad Pitt in Fight Club approach and gone through the motions as cool-guy Nic Cage.
As her orchid thief, Chris Cooper shows what those who have seen him in American Beauty, Lone Star, and October Sky already know -- that he may just be the best character actor working today.
The acting in this film is incredible, especially from Chris Cooper who plays Laroche from a totally different angle than his tyrannical father figure in “American Beauty.”
Cooper ( American Beauty ) selflessly digs in to play Laroche, with his missing teeth and sweaty T-shirts, and it's a wonderful performance.
Chris Cooper in particular has been cast in so many utterly square roles (the haunted sheriff in Lone Star , the latent-homosexual dad in American Beauty ) that I wouldn't have guessed what a phenomenal job he would do in the role of the life-damaged borderline nutjob he plays here.
Cooper, so memorable as the repressed military man in "American Beauty," pulls together a fascinating picture of a guy who behaves like a redneck and thinks like a well-educated lawyer.
Chris Cooper, best known for playing buttoned-up individuals in films like "Lone Star," "American Beauty," "October Sky" and "The Bourne Identity," makes the most of his opportunity to let it rip with Laroche, whose lack of front teeth only enhances his charisma.
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But he’s running into the worst writer’s block this side of Barton Fink.
Brian Cox, so convincing as a macho pederast in 2001�s L.I.E., shines as a facilitator of screenwriting workshops (�God help you if you ever use voice-overs in your script,� he screams at students from a podium, before one of Cage�s voice-overs chimes in to hilarious effect).