Adaptation
This movie has earned only two stars at Netflix, but to me it was worth so much more than that, if only because it features Nicholas Cage’s man-boobs so prominently. I like to see a Hollywood leading man who is fatter than I am.
Cage plays twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman, who are also given credits as screenwriters at the beginning of the film and in the “filmography” that is part of the special features. This is just one way in which director Spike Jones blurs the lines between reality and fiction. By the end of the film, one is barely certain that anything has really occurred in this film; it could all just as easily be in Charlie’s screwed up head.
Charlie is a screenwriter assigned the task of writing a movie script based on a novel The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), thus the title of the film, “Adaptation.” “Adaptation” also refers to the Darwinian concept of adaptation in which animals, plants, and other organisms adapt themselves to their environment. This adaptation is genetic. Thus a moth with a longer proboscis finds that it is better able to feed from an orchid with a longer nectar-producing tube, and it passes on this trait to its offspring so that the symbiosis between moth and plant survives and thrives. This is an example specifically referred to in the film, and in some ways the film is about similar relationships among people: people do not, and cannot, live in isolation or prevent “adaptation,” much as some (like Charlie) might try.
Charlie’s attempt at a screenplay about flowers, with no drama, no conflict, no love interest, no sex, no crime—in short, no human interest whatsoever—quickly proves impossible to write. Meanwhile, his more extroverted brother attends a schlocky screenwriting class and writes a script for a serial killer thriller that wows Charlie’s agent. Charlie disdains his brother’s advice, but is secretly jealous of his success both in screenwriting and with women.
Charlie is filled with self-loathing because of his baldness, his fatness, and his propensity to sweat during any kind of social interaction. He avoids people and believes that what he needs to write is isolation above all else. When he has the chance to meet Susan Orlean, something that might provide him the perspective he needs to finish his script, he makes up an excuse to avoid her.
Eventually, however, Charlie’s defenses begin to break down. He finds himself attending the screenwriting class that so obviously helped his brother. He goes to New York to meet Susan Orlean, but is unable to bring himself to meet her, sending his twin brother in his place. He also asks his brother to help him with his script, part of which help involves spying on Orlean which leads to the rather dramatic finish to a movie that for nearly two hours has seemed most undramatic, even plodding.
The end result is despite Charlie’s high, artistic pretensions, it is only through action (spying on Orlean and the climax this provokes) and through relationship—relationship with his brother, relationships with Orlean and her lover/character, John Laroche, and finally, relationship with a love interest, Amelia—that Charlie is able to finish his script and begin to feel fulfilled in his life.
I found myself sympathizing deeply with Charlie, and I was surprised when I also found myself liking his brother Donald as well, who is first portrayed as something of a happy-go-lucky hack of a writer. The two of them are really two sides of the same personality, which may have been Jones’ intention in making them identical twins. Unfortunately, Jones’ message that we all live in symbiotic, adaptive relationships with other people, is a message I haven’t been able to take to heart in my own life. My own life has been too long predicated on isolation, emotional distance from others, and self-loathing for me to ever change, barring some trauma such as Charlie experiences.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
What I really need to do is go back and rewatch this movie. I love Charlie Kaufman via Being John Malkovich. I wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped by this movie. Though I went on to love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Anyway, my point here was to say that I was inspired to read The Orchid Thief recently. Happened on it by accident at the library, and it was something that I wouldn’t have been interested in *at all* except for its loose ties to Adaptation.
Pulling back at my memories of the film, I knew that the two would be virtually unconnected except for through orchids, John Laroche and Susan Orlean. But it was really a captivating book. I had a hard time putting it down.
The real meaning of the book was of obsession, just as with its disimiliar-on-purpose movie. Susan Orlean’s character undoubtedly fictitiously remarks at one point that she has never been single-mindedly obsessed with something. Or that’s what I remember from my hazy recall of the movie.
And it comes across that way in the book as well. She becomes obsessed by her book project, and by one orchid, and allows no other orchid to come into her life, because orchids have a way of taking over normal people’s lives. She never finds her ghost orchid, at least, not by the end of her writing, and I think by that point, she doesn’t know that she wants to. It’s almost like she’s finished with her obsession, much the way that Laroche finishes with obsessions.
Some people stay obsessed for life, and others move on to the next thing.
Comment by Mel B. — Wednesday, 10 August 2005 @ 2:00 pm
I didn’t realize that the “Being John Malkovich” connection was real, or that there really is a book titled “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean. Makes me wonder if maybe there really is a Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Is there?
I was fairly impressed by the film. I think what Orlean says is that she has never had a passion for something. “Passion” is the word she uses. I can see the meaning you’ve taken from the film, and I agree. The adaptation we see in the film is of characters becoming obsessed with each other and changing, “adapting” to better maintain their obsession. Thus Susan becomes obsessed with John much as he is obsessed with orchids. I think it’s inevitable that this obsession, or passion as Orlean calls it, should depart as quickly and suddenly as it came on.
Comment by Matthew — Wednesday, 10 August 2005 @ 2:07 pm
Being John Malkovich is one of the most original things I’ve seen. It really blew my mind. And I turned on several people to it, despite the fact that I came to the movie a couple of years late, much like The Matrix.
(See if this works.) There is a Charlie Kaufman.. And his twin is fictitious, though he shares a screenwriting credit.
I bet Todd would have tons more to say both on Adaptation and Charlie Kaufman. I approach movies from a different level. But I think we’d both agree that Charlie Kaufman-involved things are usually odder than anything, and damned cool.
Loved the idea that fictional Charlie doesn’t want anything to do with sexing up the movie, and that the movie ends up including everything he didn’t want. Though you’ll find, if you read The Orchid Thief, that a book about orchids really can be captivating. If only because it’s about remarkable people and their obsessions.
Comment by Mel B. — Wednesday, 10 August 2005 @ 4:12 pm
We own Adaptation. It is a fascinating film. Dawn was hooked before me though. The first time through I found the latter portion of the film jarring and incoherent which is hardly a surprise. There is a logic and coherence to it of course . . . which you both know: the rest of the film was written by Donald! I’d like to rewatch the film in order to say a bit more. But doesn’t it seem, in a way, that the world view espoused by Donald wins? The world of action, violence and conflict? I’d like to think through the two viewpoints portrayed by D and C. . .
Comment by Todd — Monday, 15 August 2005 @ 4:33 pm