Adaptation. (2002)

Charlie Kaufman got the job of turning Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief-a book with practically no plot-into a movie. Instead, he wrote a film about himself, a struggling screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman, who just can’t figure out how to adapt The Orchid Thief. Spike Jonze directed it in 2002, teaming up with Kaufman again after Being John Malkovich. Kaufman pours all his anxieties onto the page: the self-loathing, the nervous sweating, the idea that anything truly honest is destined to fail commercially. Then he goes and invents a twin brother, Donald, who’s everything Charlie isn’t-confident, fast, shamelessly formulaic. Nicolas Cage plays both brothers, and you never question for a second that you’re watching two completely different guys.

They actually credit Donald as co-writer. The Academy even nominated this imaginary brother for Best Adapted Screenplay. That’s the gag, institutionalized. And just when you think Charlie’s avoided every tired Hollywood cliché, the story throws in all the pulp conventions he swore to avoid-car chases, a drug lab in the swamp, a death. You can feel his embarrassment bleeding through each moment. But that’s the point. The movie stops being an adaptation of the book and turns into an adaptation of Charlie himself, with Donald pushing him there. The brother who’d write a scene like this without shame writes it, and he has to die so Charlie can actually keep what he’s learned.

The one thing that holds me back is how the film’s cleverness can almost deflect any criticism. Call it self-indulgent if you want, but the movie already beat you to it. #Cinema