Charlie Kaufman is smart. Charlie Kaufman is talented. Charlie Kaufman is the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood. He is also the writer and protagonist of the recent Spike Jonze-directed post-modern in-joke, “Adaptation.”
The movie recounts Kaufman’s (Nicolas Cage) attempt to adapt the novel “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) into a screenplay.
In attempting a straightforward realization of Orlean’s novel, Kaufman’s character gets obsessed with his own interpretation of the book and ends up writing himself into the adaptation. By writing himself into “Adaptation,” he thereby adds himself to the short list of screenwriters with household names (Paddy Chayefsky, William Goldman, Robert Towne, is there anyone else?).
It is understandable that people want to allow themselves to fall prey to this media-created hoopla. After all, the screenwriter is a historically under-celebrated yet vital facet of filmmaking.
What is troubling about Kaufman’s latest endeavor is that it uses self-consciousness to justify self-indulgence, and does so in a less subtle fashion than many films that precede it.
There is one thing that “Adaptation” is not: original. Despite the fascination by both critics and Charlie Kaufman with describing Charlie Kaufman as a modern genius whose fresh wacky thoughts could have no origin in anything seen before on this planet, “Adaptation” is, in a few ways, derivative. The only major difference between this film and say, every film by Fellini or Woody Allen, is that Kaufman’s self-reference is literal. By naming the main character Charlie Kaufman and centering the plot around Kaufman’s inability to write the very movie we are watching, Kaufman literalizes the standard device of using a protagonist as a representation of the author.
In “8 1/2,” Marcello Mastroianni’s character, Guido, presents a film director who has run out of ideas. The character can basically be interpreted as a representation of Fellini.
Even more obviously, Woody Allen plays himself in almost all of his films, though he’s never felt it necessary to name any of his characters Woody Allen. Furthermore, this kind of literalization surfaces in “My Dinner with Andre,” when the protagonist shares the name of the writer and actor, Wallace Shawn.
Once one discards the idea that Kaufman is an absolute original, it’s then possible to appreciate his urbane, witty scripts which, when directed by Spike Jonze, resemble a synthesis of Coen Brothers quirk and Simpsons wit, and are often more profound than most people realize.
Beneath the hilarity and sheer entertainment value of “Being John Malkovich,” there exists a very simple and beautiful message: be yourself.
The genius of “Malkovich” is that it uses irony and roundabout narrative to allow modern audiences to accept such a simple message that they would otherwise have written off as trite.
Similarly, the strengths of “Adaptation” do not lie in its self-reference or its cheap jabs at the film industry, but rather in its exploration of the idea of adaptation (hence, the title).
Kaufman explores this theme by juxtaposing the stories of three very different characters against each other, as well as against the process of photosynthesis, the process of narrative filmmaking, and the process of human growth.
The film hits its peak when orchid poacher JohnLaroche, played by Chris Cooper with casual shrewdness , mumbles the most important line in the film: “Adaptation is a profound process.” This realization hits Kaufman towards the middle of the film when he expounds to the audience that human adaptation is no different from that of plants–it is an unconscious, natural progression that happens whether one likes it or not.
That epiphany, in a nutshell, is the thesis of Kaufman’s film. And yet, it is at this point that the film takes a turn for the most forced and unnatural path imaginable. As initiated by Charlie’s twin brother Donald (also played by Cage), the movie goes from witty character study to Hollywood caper with all of the elements that Charlie derides at the beginning of the film: sex, drugs, violence, death, and most fundamentally, character growth.
Contrary to what the movie’s admirers would have me believe, my frustration at the film’s third act is not a result of my not getting it.
This is the common argument given by fans and critics alike–that if you don’t like the movie, you don’t get it (a point that makes me wonder how many people actually like the film beyond being made to feel that they are on the inside of a big joke).
I get that the film’s sudden betrayal of Kaufman’s anti-Hollywood narrative is a switch to Donald Kaufman as the film’s protagonist, and I understand that it is a whole-hearted attempt by Charlie to adapt. Nonetheless, the shift in style does not abide by the film’s earlier decree that adaptation must be a natural and unconscious process. It is a sudden and endlessly self-conscious shift that tries to have you both rooting for Charlie to give up his cynical anti-narrative ways and laughing at the typical Hollywood-isms to which Charlie is supposedly adapting.
In short, the film wants it both ways.
This ironical usage of Hollywood conventions is more subtle and skillful in movies like “The Player” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” both of which end in a similar realization that the film the characters are working on is the film the audience is watching.
Even if one isn’t supposed to take “Adaptation” as anything beyond standard Hollywood entertainment, (which I think one is), the third act is significantly, and paradoxically, less entertaining than the first two.
Charlie Kaufman doubts his abilities, like any good writer should, so he modestly (or not so modestly) has weaved together a story that suggests he should adapt to Hollywood convention. The problem is that Kaufman is better than he gives himself credit for.
As it turns out, his quirky concoctions of celebrity, human nature, and writer’s block prove far more entertaining than the conventional Hollywood fare. nyou
