In `Adaptation', Nicholas Cage portrays real-life scribe Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter of `Being John Malkovitch'. Cage also portrays Charlie's twin brother Donald, who does not exist in real life. Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper also play real people; Streep as journalist Suzie Orlean and Cooper as toothless wacko John LaRouche. Orlean wrote a popular book, The Orchid Thief, about LaRouche's attempt to find and pollinate the rare ghost orchid. But while they play real people, the events of the third act of the film no doubt never took place. John Cusack and Catherine Keener also pop up, playing themselves as the stars of `Being John Malkovitch', which, of course, they were. Confused?
Charlie has been tapped to write the screenplay for Orlean's book. He is too steeped in self-loathing to be able to achieve this, a condition made worse when Donald attends a hack screen writing class and begins to pound out a cliched thriller involving a serial killer, his hostage, and the cop chasing them. While Donald finds the writing easy and energizing, Charlie feels lost in his attempts to turn a non-fiction book about flowers and Darwin's theory of adaptation into a cohesive and filmable script. He wrestles with himself, masturbates frequently, loses his girlfriend, and finds himself sinking deeper and deeper.
It would unfair to describe any of the film's climax to anyone who has not seen it. But `Adaptation', after a clever and involving first two-thirds, overshoots itself and makes it's points with the least amount of subtlety possible. It is still clever, to be sure, but clever in a 'look at me!' way that betrays the movie as much as Charlie's screenplay betrays everything he hates and Donald loves. Maybe it was too much to try and pound this thing out and maintain the level of creativity all the way through, but the last half-hour or so loses the zing that the previous hour sang with.
Cage takes a tough job and makes it look easy. Resembling a less manic version of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, he creates two very realistic people with seeming ease. It's nice to see him actually act again, rather than striking another `Snake Eyes'-`The Rock'-`Gone in 60 Seconds' pose. Movies in which the same actor plays twins have always given me a headache figuring out the logistics of it (`Multiplicity', with Michael Keaton getting cloned over and over, nearly killed me), but Cage handles the actions in a non-showy way that let me forget my worries for a moment. Streep is as amazing as ever, playing a character going through massive changes and doing things she never thought she would do with the same dazzling skill most of us have taken for granted from her. And Cooper, best known as the militant and closeted neighbor in `American Beauty', really shines, avoiding the trap of turning the seeming nutjob into a character filled with profundities he's unaware of. He could have been a backwoods, toothless Forrest Gump, spouting shallow-yet-deep catchphrases, but Cooper makes him a three dimensional being, filled with faults and pain and yet not someone to be pitied.
Kaufman and director Spike Jonze both worked together
on `Malkovitch', a movie perfect from beginning to end. With `Adaptation' they stumble yet manage to produce a film better than most anything Hollywood could dream up.
Charlie has been tapped to write the screenplay for Orlean's book. He is too steeped in self-loathing to be able to achieve this, a condition made worse when Donald attends a hack screen writing class and begins to pound out a cliched thriller involving a serial killer, his hostage, and the cop chasing them. While Donald finds the writing easy and energizing, Charlie feels lost in his attempts to turn a non-fiction book about flowers and Darwin's theory of adaptation into a cohesive and filmable script. He wrestles with himself, masturbates frequently, loses his girlfriend, and finds himself sinking deeper and deeper.
It would unfair to describe any of the film's climax to anyone who has not seen it. But `Adaptation', after a clever and involving first two-thirds, overshoots itself and makes it's points with the least amount of subtlety possible. It is still clever, to be sure, but clever in a 'look at me!' way that betrays the movie as much as Charlie's screenplay betrays everything he hates and Donald loves. Maybe it was too much to try and pound this thing out and maintain the level of creativity all the way through, but the last half-hour or so loses the zing that the previous hour sang with.
Cage takes a tough job and makes it look easy. Resembling a less manic version of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, he creates two very realistic people with seeming ease. It's nice to see him actually act again, rather than striking another `Snake Eyes'-`The Rock'-`Gone in 60 Seconds' pose. Movies in which the same actor plays twins have always given me a headache figuring out the logistics of it (`Multiplicity', with Michael Keaton getting cloned over and over, nearly killed me), but Cage handles the actions in a non-showy way that let me forget my worries for a moment. Streep is as amazing as ever, playing a character going through massive changes and doing things she never thought she would do with the same dazzling skill most of us have taken for granted from her. And Cooper, best known as the militant and closeted neighbor in `American Beauty', really shines, avoiding the trap of turning the seeming nutjob into a character filled with profundities he's unaware of. He could have been a backwoods, toothless Forrest Gump, spouting shallow-yet-deep catchphrases, but Cooper makes him a three dimensional being, filled with faults and pain and yet not someone to be pitied.
Kaufman and director Spike Jonze both worked together
on `Malkovitch', a movie perfect from beginning to end. With `Adaptation' they stumble yet manage to produce a film better than most anything Hollywood could dream up.