Nicolas Cage plays Charlie Kaufman, a smart but unconfident screenwriter who is trying to adapt a book ("The Orchid Thief") into a film for the screen. He struggles and self-deprecates himself as he tries to come up with a script he believes will be successful. Meanwhile, his untalented and obnoxious twin brother has success writing, mainly because he doesn't have the same demeanor as his unfortunate brother. We delve deep into what is the madness of trying to write a screenplay for a film and see that it is not really as easy as it seems. Meanwhile, in scenes taking place years earlier, we see the writer of the book, (Streep) interviewing an orchid thief (Cooper) who steals orchids from the swamps of Florida because of his love for collecting the precious flowers. Soon, all of their worlds come colliding together.

Yet, the magic of the way Kaufman writes is that he can take something way out of the ordinary and write it into a fun and kinetic journey of characters and stories. The interesting thing about this film, is that the film we are watching is a film about a screenwriter that is writing the film we are currently watching. It's almost like a paradox of film making. As he writes onscreen, the events transpire to us the audience, at a similar time. The film jumps back and forth from present day to the past as the writer Susan Orlean is interviewing the orchid thief and trying to come up with a way to adapt her notes into a well written book. Just as the orchids try to adapt to their milieu, the people are trying to adapt to their own environment as well. The flowers adapt to life in the dangerous swamps, and the humans adapt to life in the chaotic world they are in.

Chris Cooper does a great job as a poor southerner who has nothing else better to do than go around to swamps collecting orchids and trying to get around the law. Meryl Streep also plays a very different role than normal as she is a writer for the New York Times who becomes enthralled in the wonder for life that the orchid thief has. Soon she starts falling for the thief who is missing his front teeth and driving a truck that should probably belong in a junkyard. Charlie Kaufman (Cage) in present day is reading about these adventures between the two and hopes to make a screenplay that will be successful, but he can't seem to find a way to put these events into words for a good screenplay. He goes on to try to take writing classes and as his character in the film changes the way he writes, the events in the film change in the same way. When it is suggested to him that he put more action into his script, all the characters in "Adaptation" start to do more daring things. It is hard to write about films that Charlie Kaufman writes because they are intricate and very odd. Yet these characteristics always seem to work out and make for a great and entertaining film.

In writing this review, I myself struggled with my own "Adaptation" of how to describe this film in words that would make sense. In the end, I myself understood how hard "Adaptation" can be for all of us.
***1/2 out of ****

Recommended:
Yes