Rating: 5 out of 5
As if their 1999 masterpiece Being John Malkovich wasn't enough, director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman reunited for this equally brilliant (perhaps even superior in craftsmanship) 2002 follow-up. It's not a sequel, but it could be said that Being John Malkovich is a sort of a chapter, or an overture to Adaptation. Some of the best films leave me speechless, and some set my cognitive firewood so ablaze that I could talk about them for hours. This movie is both. There is this extraordinary duality to all of its aspects. Fact and fiction become one. It transcends qualities in "normal" films, and it lovingly embraces them. It is about nature, and about civilization. It side-splitting comedy, and an immensely touching drama. It is surely one of the most creative films of our time, and miraculously it maintains a straightforward narrative.
The daring ingenuity of this movie is established before the plot even begins. Nicolas Cage plays screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, whose original script Being John Malkovich is currently in production. Charlie is tragically pathetic. (Reportedly, this is a fairly fictionalized version of the real Kaufman.) Shy hardly begins to cover it; he is downright terrified of what other people think. Through his narration, he wallows in his loneliness and self-pity, lamenting his tubby physique, receding hairline, and inability to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief into a script. Meanwhile, he has to put up with his sweetly optimistic twin brother Donald (also Cage), who is the polar opposite of Charlie: artistically irresponsible, socially confident, and prone to using the floor as furniture. Donald is clearly enamored with his brother, but only manages to intensify Charlie's frustrations with the inexplicable success of his formulaic thriller script.
In recent yeras, Nicolas Cage has been trying aggressively to build a reputation as a badass in simply terrible action/dramas. He seems to thrive on the notoreity. But do not discredit Cage based on these unfortunate productions. He is a very gifted actor, and plays a loser better than anyone else. This is one of the boldest and best performances in film. He easily brings the oblivious perk to Donald, and as Charlie delivers the perfect amount of self-loathing and despair. Very few actors could play both halves of the profoundly moving scene that Charlie and Donald share towards the end of the film. Not many actors could even play one.
As Charlie struggles to adapt The Orchid Thief we see flashbacks to three years before, to the passion-starved Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep, captivating as always) and her blossoming relationship with the titular orchid hunter John Laroche (Oscar-winner Chris Cooper). By far (and knowingly) and film's most colorfully intriguing character, Laroche is arrogantly intelligent, and lacking in the two front teeth department. He may look like a hick, but this is a disguise he wears to punish himself for his past. In actuality, he is sensitive and introverted. The depth Cooper brings to this already deeply-written character is marvelous.
But what really sets Adaptation. apart from other movies is its development. It isn't just the characters that experience it, the whole film subtly changes as they do. The tone and style modify themselves, or adapt, to Charlie's different writing processes and views on life. His attempts to write the Orchid Thief script are woven into the story until we realize just how cleverly imaginative the structure is. The intrinsic natures of the characters collide and are reborn out of each others' ashes. They exert an influence over each other that they can't quite discern from so near, like how an insect pollinates a flower and unknowingly keeps the world alive. This film isn't just made by a writer and a director and a crew. It is crafted and shaped by its characters.
A movie like this can be described many ways. It is about fear. It is about self-pity. It is about redemption. It is about inspiration. It is about passion. It is about disappointment. It is about survival. It is about flowers. By the end, we realize that these are all the same thing. Adaptation. is hands down the best film of the 2000s.
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