Adaptation (2002)

What’s this all about?

Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze, is a narrative roller coaster. On one level, it’s about a Florida weirdo who goes to great lengths to find, and steal rare orchids. On another level, it’s about a reporter-cum-novellist who is writing that weirdo’s story, along with her own. Beyond that, it’s about a screenwriter trying to adapt that journalist’s novel into a feature film while struggling with his own insecurity, confusion, and an annoying twin brother.

Along the way, love is made, guns are brandished, drugs are taken, and cars are crashed. It’s a pretty wild ride from start to finish, much like the excellent music video for The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” also directed by Jonze.

Who is Nick in this one?

Nick has dual roles as both “Charlie Kauffman” (real life screen writer of this move), and “Donald Kauffman,” that screen writer’s fictional twin brother. As Charlie, Nick is neurotic, fearful, awkward, and shy. As Donald, he’s extroverted, self-assured, and stupid. This works shockingly well, as Cage covers both roles perfectly. This performance is a testament to what Cage can deliver when directed well (looking at you, Frances Ford Coppola). Nick was nominated for an Oscar for this.

Who else is in this one?

Meryl Streep (Do I really need to help you remember who Meryl Streep is?) plays real life journalist “Susan Orleans,” who wrote the novel “The Orchid Thief.” She struggles to understand the meaning of the worldview that is shared with her by John Laroche. Everybody knows that Meryl Streep is a great actress. If you ever need to check that for yourself, watch this movie. She’s brilliant. She was nominated for an Oscar for this role..

Chris Cooper (American Beauty) plays “John Laroche.” a pre-pandemic Tiger King type. He’s into everything from tropical fish to making pornography and has a wild and sad origin story. He’s missing his two front teeth and spends a lot of time wading through the Everglades. He spouts little life lessons that border between moronic and profound. Cooper won an Oscar for this film, and he deserved it.

Brian Cox (“Agamemnon” from Troy) Judy Greer (“Kitty” from Arrested Development), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary) and Tilda Swinton (“Katie Cox” from Burn After Reading) have small roles as a screenwriting lecturer, a waitress, a makeup artist, and a studio executive, respectively. They all deliver excellent performances.

Did you see that?

The opening scene of the movie takes place on the set of the film Being John Malkovich, a film that the real life Charlie Kauffman wrote, and Spike Jonze directed.

In the scene, we see John Malkovich addressing the crew of the film while surrounded by dozens of other actors in realistic John Malkovich masks. The general gist of his lengthy speech is, “everyone but him is wearing a hot, heavy, uncomfortable mask, so unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t delay filming so as not to prolong the suffering of these actors.”

I found it pretty funny that Malkovich delays filming for a considerable amount of time to deliver his needlessly long diatribe. I’m sure it was an intentional joke, but it was very subtle. -Michael

Towards the end of the movie we see Nick and Nick crash their teal colored Ford wagon as they attempt to escape from the everglades. Then we jump ahead to Nick meeting some people for lunch, after which he drives away in what looks to be the same teal Ford wagon. What are we to think of this? Are we to assume the car got fixed? I assume enough time had passed to make that possible, but it was a pretty bad accident. Or are we to think Nick’s character just really, really liked the car so he bought another? Honestly, I’m not too sure what to think of it. It feels weird though in a movie where so many little details are taken care of. Was this on purpose or just not thought about? And, of course, it doesn’t really matter. It just caught my eye. -Sarah

What were Nick’s best parts?

Once again, Nick presents some real difficulty by delivering a very, very consistent performance. In Adaptation, it was consistently good, which was a nice change.

I’ll call out the scene in which Nick attempts to impress a friendly waitress with his knowledge of orchids, in which she’s shown some interest.

At first, they have a little back and forth, with the waitress and Nick trading interesting orchid facts. Then, Nick launches into an excited “data dump,” in which he spouts off just about everything he knows about orchids in a rapid-fire manner.

When I first saw this around 2002, I wasn’t really familiar with Autism, or people who are “on the spectrum.” It just wasn’t something I had encountered. In more recent years, I’ve had cause to work closely with some people who were living with Autism. “Data dumps” like these were a near daily experience for me. Cage delivers this one absolutely perfectly.

The scene concludes with Cage asking the waitress to join him at an Orchid show, and she immediately transitions from treating him like he’s mentally disabled (which Cage’s character fails to notice) to seeing him as a creepy weirdo (which Cage’s character immediately recognizes). It was heartbreaking in its relatability. -Michael

I agree, Nick did an incredible job in this movie doing both roles. Normally when I see a movie with one actor doing two roles, there are little tells where you can see the other character come through, but not here. Nick so completely separates his two characters I completely forget that they are being portrayed by the same guy. I am in complete awe over how well he does this. I know this is not naming a specific scene, but any of the scenes with just the two Nicks were his best. It could be the bedroom scene where they have a heart to heart. Or the swamp scene where they have another heart to heart. Or possibly the death scene. How he acted and interacted so realistically against nothing. He truly can be an amazing actor. -Sarah

What were Nick’s worst parts?

Cage’s performance in Adaptation is, as noted, exceptionally good. There are no bad scenes in the movie, and there are no bad performances from Cage. Since I have to call something out, I‘ll mention a scene in which Cage’s character fantasizes about having sex with Meryl Streep’s character. 

There’s nothing wrong with the scene. It’s just not done as well as the other fantasies that we’ve seen. 

It reminded me of that scene in Ghostbusters in which Dan Ackroyd gets a blowjob from a ghost. -Michael

It is very hard to call out a bad scene. For me, I thought the scenes on set of Being John Malkovich, the ones with Nick as Charlie, got to me a little. I think Nick went just a little too far making Charlie awkward. I’m sure this was directed, but they could have rained it back just a bit. -Sarah

How was the movie?

There’s a long list of things that happen frequently in films that I hate, and generally see as either lazy or stupid. Some of that list is below:

1. Use of expository voiceover to tell the viewer what a character is thinking.
2. Movies that have a wild shift in tone or theme in the third act (Looking at you, From Dusk Till Dawn).
3. Movies where characters spend most of the movie thinking about or worrying about everyday insecurities.
4. Characters who are so moronic that they come back around to being deeply philosophical.
5. Films in which an actor plays his own diametrically opposed twin to provide contrast between character types.
6. Movies where the only real obstacle that the protagonist faces is “not believing in himself.”
7. Extended scenes of characters thinking about things without doing or saying anything.
8. Movies that are “meta” or self-referential.
9. Movies about the struggles of making movies (Also, Broadway musicals about making Broadway musicals).

Adaptation employs every single item on this list. It’s like somebody wrote a textbook called “How to write a movie that Michael won’t like,” then adapted that into a film.

Despite this, or rather, because of this, I found Adaptation to be immensely enjoyable.

The first two thirds of the movie wasn’t about anything, yet it held my attention and interest. The characters were weird but interesting and relatable. When the movie took a wild left-hand turn into the world of chase scenes and drug use, I loved it. 

I honestly feel like Spike Jonze and Charlie Kauffman looked at a “what not to do” list for screenwriters, and said,. “we can make a great movie using all of these.”

They were right. -Michael

The movie was fantastic. I can’t stop thinking about it. -Sarah

Yeah, but did you like it?

Adaptation is a fantastic movie. -Michael

LOVED it!!!! -Sarah

Where can I watch it?

It’s free on Pluto TV.