Adaptation
2002
***
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Brian Cox
Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze follow up Being John Malkovich with an original metafictional comedy about Hollywood. Nicolas Cage plays Charlie Kaufman, a socially awkward screenwriter who struggles to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief. Cage also plays his outgoing twin brother Donald who is in the process of writing a clichéd serial killer movie. On the surface this is a smug and, to be honest, not particularly enjoyable film, the wit and humour are almost entirely subtextual. The question is whether that's worth sitting through a clunky film with a dreadful ending, even if that's Kaufman's whole point. Cooper won a well deserved Oscar for his funny performance as the titular orchid thief.
