SCREEN SCENE: ‘Adaptation’ wins with inventive screenplay

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, February 5, 2003

INTERIOR, NIGHT. KATHLEEN slouches at her computer, slunk low in her dining room chair with her arms outstretched to reach the keyboard. The brightness of a blank white page on the screen illuminates her unfocused eyes as she searches her mind for a way to begin her review.

KATHLEEN (voiceover)How to start. What to say. I liked it; it was a good movie. I could say something about the individual performances – you can always count on something good from those actors. But the story … it’s so broad, and yet so intimate at the same time … if I go into too much detail, it’ll give it all away …

If someone were to write a movie about my writing a review of a movie, perhaps that’s how it would start. Confused yet?

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman took this idea and ran with it for his movie adaptation of “The Orchid Thief,” a best-selling book by The New Yorker writer Susan Orlean. So if you plan to see it, be prepared for this screenplay-within-a-screenplay trick throughout.

And a good trick it is. Orlean’s book is nonfiction, a slice-of-life description of an unconventional horticulturist in the Florida Everglades whose passion is collecting rare and valuable orchids.

In the movie version, we see Kaufman, who was hailed as brilliant for penning the clever and bizarre script for “Being John Malkovich,” being assigned the task of dramatizing the book. Building on his personal struggle to write the script, the film adds layer upon layer of flashbacks to focus next on Susan Orlean’s struggle to write her book, and then to the orchid thief himself, John LaRoche, and his struggle to stay ahead of the law pursuing his colorful obsession.

With a plot this intricate, only the most skilled actors could make it work, and make audiences care enough to follow the back-and-forth meanderings of the story. Nicholas Cage pulls double duty playing identical twins Charlie and Donald Kaufman, each going about the business of screenwriting in a diametrically opposed fashion. One brother is insecure, self-doubting and afraid of living; the other is carefree and relaxed. Cage finds solid ground as Charlie, the neurotic twin, combining the best (or worst) qualities of perpetual sad sacks Woody Allen and Albert Brooks; but his more outgoing doppelganger seems more forced.

Perfectly cast as always, Meryl Streep brings Susan Orlean to life as a character Kaufman can only learn about through her writing. She links the actual subject matter and the broader themes of the film, dealing with passion and how all things must adapt to survive.

“Adaptation” is not a movie for the masses. The story is told through the process of writing a screenplay, so the craft of dramatic writing is in the forefront throughout. Audiences will need to be familiar with literary terms like “denouement,” “character arc,” “deconstruction” and “deus ex machina” to really get the most out of the experience. Otherwise, much of the framework and especially the humor will be misunderstood, if not bewildering.

However, it’s not a highbrow, stuffy film at all. To explain more would indeed mean spoiling the fun, and I’m not talking about a surprise twist a la M. Night Shyamalan. Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, who also helmed “Being John Malkovich,” have deftly turned the process of writing a movie inside out. If you’re up to the challenge, you’ll be pleasantly entertained by this book-to-movie adaptation that will make you think as well as feel.

Now sitting upright with the energy that comes from ideas flowing, Kathleen clicks “Save” button and leans back, satisfied, to reread her first draft.

FADE TO BLACK.

Three stars out of four