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Watch out! Adaptation. is the weirdest movie since�I don�t know, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Human Nature, or Being John Malkovich? All four of these have been written by Charlie Kaufman, and Adaptation. is his weirdest yet.. It�s not to say it�s his best (that honor goes to Confessions), nor funniest, but it still racks up points on the weirdness scale.
Kaufman writes himself into a real life situation he had. He was chosen to adapt Susan Orlean�s nonfiction book The Orchid Thief, but could never seem to do it. So he wrote the screenplay to Adaptation., about his struggle. He�s an aging, bald, fat, dateless man who was given the job to adapt Orlean�s book. He has trouble, while his brother Donald is starting to make it in the business with a stupid horror clich� The Three. And then it gets weird.
One burning question is on my mind: Why did Chris Cooper win Best Supporting Actor? All he had was a set of fake �teeth� and a part that didn�t even seem challenging. What Orlean (Meryl Streep) says about him, that he�s a very interesting character, I didn�t really see. His character didn�t interest me at all, and I wasn�t exactly in pain when he was in the screen, but I wasn�t exactly smiling.
Overall, this was a better movie that Being John Malkovich, but was nowhere near as funny (which is kind of pathetic, because I didn�t really think Malkovich was that funny). I think I laughed twice, which, for a comedy, isn�t that good, but since it has such a quirky style I can forgive it. Quirky movies have always had a special place in my heart, but this one was a little too weird, such as Kaufman dictating a screenplay, which actually turns out to be for the movie we�re watching.
Nicolas Cage, who played both Charlie and Donald, did better than, say, Gone in 60 Seconds, but definitely wasn�t Oscar-caliber. Streep and Cooper, ditto. I didn�t really find anything to suck me into the film, and the last third was just plain preposterous and unlikely. It really brought down the film a whole lot, from being marginally good to being semi-ok.
One other point against Adaptation. is that it was everything it tried to be. Kaufman stated that he didn�t want his adaptation of The Orchid Thief to be a Hollywood film; he didn�t want Orlean and John Laroche to fall in love, he didn�t want clich�s or sex, and he wanted things to make sense. Kaufman was wrong, then.
Rated R for language, sexuality, some drug use and violent images.
Review Date: June 14, 2003
