adaptation

In the classic Kauffman style, this movie is surreal and unique and brilliant and, much too smart for
me. I’m not an idiot, and I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about film and script analysis,
but his films elude me. I enjoy them and I understand that there’s more than likely a really strong
message and mind-altering symbolism buried beneath the witty repartee, but I don’t see it when I
first watch these movies and… To be honest, I never feel the desire to watch them again to find out.

The plot is complicated, but goes as follows. Nicholas Cage is playing both Kauffman twins as they
struggle to write their screenplays. One is in the middle of filming Being John Malkovich, though no
one on the set seems to care that he’s the one that created it. He’s been commissioned to adapt a
book about flowers called “The Orchid Thief” into a screenplay and he’s having a hard time
because he wants to stay true to the nature of the book. Nothing really happens in the book. No
one changes. There isn’t a big revelation at the end that changes the main characters life. Etc. Etc.
Kauffman is also having issues because he’s got a little crush on the author, played by Meryl Streep.

He goes through a bunch of trial scenes and can’t find a strong voice to carry the script. Finally, he
decides to use himself as the main character and write about him writing (or trying to write) the
screenplay.

This creates a cool loop of time where we see Kauffman writing things we’ve already seen in the
movie. We see his brother write his first screenplay and having fun with his life, where he is in a
constant panic and is afraid of everything.

There is a moment where we actually feel like this is a true story, which I’m sure some of it is. But
then it gets into this whole Florida swamp, guns, alligators, car accidents, people dying section that
we’re all hoping didn’t really happen. (Though, at the same time, we don’t have any basis to believe
any of it is fiction or non-fiction. Do you see how I get confused?)

Anyway, the performances in this are perfect. I just don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to feel at
the end. Because he says that he doesn’t want to write a script where anyone changes or learns
anything, but Kauffman is a different person at the end than he was in the beginning. Obviously,
this is on purpose because the writers are a thousand times smarter than I am and wouldn’t put
anything in their screenplay that they didn’t want there. But I’m left feeling like I’ve entered “The
Twilight Zone.” The ending is of Kauffman talking about how he’s going to end his screenplay, which
you have to assume is what the audience is seeing right then which is confusing and starts to give
me a headache after awhile.

I know in my heart that this is a brilliant film. But I would greatly appreciate it if someone would
explain to me why I know that.