Narcissistic Adaptation

Adaptation, starring Nicholas Cage and Meryl Streep, strikes a chord with movie reviewers | Andrew Coffin

It's easy to see why critics rave over films like Adaptation—and it's primarily because that list is short. There aren't many films like Adaptation. The Hollywood product is typically produced in such a generic, prepackaged manner that even the casual viewer becomes well-versed in its conventions. Now, imagine life as a professional critic, spending the bulk of your time sitting in a darkened theater watching movies, ever more predictable, most mediocre at best. You would look for that which is radically different or new to break the monotony.

Adaptation (rated R for bad language, sexuality, brief nudity, some drug use, and violent images) certainly fits this criterion, and has been largely heralded as a result. Real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was hired to adapt real-life author Susan Orlean's book, The Orchid Thief, into a film. The Orchid Thief is a nonfiction novel about obsessive, eccentric orchid collector John Laroche, originally published in The New Yorker, then expanded into a full-length book. Rather than adapt this book about flowers straightforwardly, which, admittedly, would have been a challenge, Mr. Kaufman instead writes himself into the script. So the film's focus shifts, from Ms. Orlean writing about Mr. Laroche, to Mr. Kaufman struggling to write about Ms. Orlean writing about Mr. Laroche.