The film, “Adaptation“, is about Charlie Kaufman. He’s a screen-writer who is given the task of adapating the book, “The Orchid Thief“, by Susan Orlean, into a movie. The problem is that he doesn’t know how. So, instead of writing a film directly about the book, he writes a film about how he doesn’t know how to write a film about the book.
The really bizarre thing is that the film “Adaptation” was written by the real Charlie Kaufman, who was actually given the task of adapting the very real book “The Orchid Thief” by the real Susan Orlean. He, instead, wrote about how he couldn’t do it. Now, to really mess things around a bit, “The Orchid Thief” book seems to echo the story of the character Charlie in an abstract way. Are you following?
It really blurs the line between reality and fiction to a point that I’ve never seen in a film. So many parts of the film are “real”, and some aren’t (Kaufman’s twin brother, Donald, for example).
To really understand, you have to see it; something which I must insist that each and everyone of you do. Now! Then you too can be stuck in the same nightmare of trying to sort various levels of reality into some ordered form. Enjoy.