Adaptation

Released: 2002
Drama, Crime
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Meryl Streep, Nicolas Cage, Chris Cooper
Running Time: 114 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown:  This is a strange story about a screenwriter who's trying to adapt a real life non-fiction novel into a movie and asks for help from his non-experienced twin brother.


This one's a bit tricky to talk about, but I'll try.  Charlie Kaufman has written many screenplays, but seems to be in a bit of a funk with his new project.  In real life there's an author named Susan Orlean who really wrote a book named "The Orchid Thief" which was about her real experience with a man named John Laroche, who's an exotic plant collector.  The movie takes this book and adds to the ending so that everything after the real ending of the book is a complete work of fiction.  Anyway, in the movie Charlie gets the job of adapting the book into a movie screenplay but he's got so many of his own personality quirks and low self esteem that it gets in the way of him working.  He asks his twin brother, who's just moved in and started writing stories himself to help him with this screenplay.
It was a good movie, but it's hard to talk about it if you haven't seen it.

I recommend you see it.
4 out of 5 for being a completely unique and interesting movie.