Adaptation [Blu-ray]

Overview

The creative team behind Being John Malkovich -- director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman -- return with this equally offbeat comedy, in which Kaufman himself becomes the leading character. Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a gifted but profoundly neurotic screenwriter who, after the success of Being John Malkovich, has been hired to write a script adapted from the nonfiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. But while Charlie is obsessive about his work, he's also intensely paranoid, given to deep depression, socially inept, and terrified of talking to women, qualities which are making it difficult to get on with his work or hold on to his tenuous relationship with girlfriend Amelia (Cara Seymour). Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin brother, Donald Kaufman (also played by Cage), has shown up to move in with his brother. Emotionally, Donald is Charlie's polar opposite -- a loudmouthed, over-confident, superficial party animal who has an easy way with the ladies. Donald has decided to follow his brother's footsteps and take up screenwriting as well, but embracing the dictates of screenwriting tutor Robert McKee (Brian Cox), he's cranking out a cliché-ridden serial-killer thriller when not busy making time with new girlfriend Caroline (Maggie Gyllenhaal). As Donald blazes through his screenplay, Charlie slowly picks away at his story, in which author Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) chronicles John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a scruffy but devoted plant enthusiast who tries to save rare species of orchids by stealing them from their natural home in the swamps of Florida. As John and Susan become better acquainted, they find themselves attracted to one another; similarly, Charlie finds himself increasingly fascinated with Susan, and finds himself falling in love with her, even though he's only seen her photo on the dust jacket of her book. Charlie arranges to meet Susan, but is too nervous to confront her face to face, so he sends Donald (who has just scored a seven-figure deal for his script) in his place, while he attends a screenwriting seminar held by McKee. Adaptation also features Tilda Swinton, Judy Greer, and Stephen Tobolowsky.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/20/2020
UPC:	0826663207866
Original Release:	2002
Rating:	R
Source:	Shout Factory
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:55:00
Sales rank:	18,102

Special Features

Original Featurette; Still Gallery; Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Nicolas Cage	Charlie Kaufman
Meryl Streep	Susan Orlean
Chris Cooper	John Laroche
Tilda Swinton	Valerie Thomas
Brian Cox	Robert McKee
Cara Seymour	Amelia Kavan
Maggie Gyllenhaal	Caroline
Jay Tavare	Matthew Osceola
Litefoot	Russell
Roger Willie	Randy
Jim Beaver	Ranger Tony
Judy Greer	Alice the Waitress
Ron Livingston	Marty
G. Paul Davis	Russell
Doug Jones	Augustus Margary
Stephen Tobolowsky	Ranger Steve Neely
Gary Farmer	Buster Baxley
Peter Jason	Defense Attorney
Gregory Itzin	Prosecutor
Curtis Hanson	Orlean's Husband
Agnes Badoo	Orlean Dinner Guest
Paul Fortune	Orlean Dinner Guest
Paul Jasmin	Orlean Dinner Guest
Lisa Love	Orlean Dinner Guest
Wendy Mogel	Orlean Dinner Guest
David O. Russell	Orlean Dinner Guest
Bob Stephenson	David
Bob Yerkes	Charles Darwin
Lynn Court	Laroche's Dad
Roger E. Fanter	Laroche's Uncle
Sandra Gimpel	Laroche's Mom
Caron Colvett	Laroche's Wife
Larry Krask	EMT
John Etter	McKee Lecture Attendee
Ray Berrios	Police Officer
Nancy Lenehan	Kaufman's Mother,Voices
John Malkovich	Himself (uncredited)
John Cusack	Himself (uncredited)
Lance Acord	Himself (uncredited)
Catherine Keener	Herself (uncredited)
Agnes NaDene Baddoo	Orlean Dinner Guest
Carter Burwell	Composer

Technical Credits

Charlie Kaufman

Spike Jonze	Director
Charlie Kaufman	Screenwriter,Screenwriter,Executive Producer
Justine Baddeley	Casting
Dan Bradley	Stunts
Gary D'Amico	Special Effects
Kim Davis	Casting
Jonathan Demme	Producer
Vincent Landay	Producer
Gray Marshall	Special Effects
Peter Saraf	Executive Producer,Producer
Edward Saxon	Producer
Gray Matter FX	Special Effects
Richard Beggs	Sound/Sound Designer
Drew Kunin	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Going through the looking glass and into the kaleidoscope, Adaptation defies easy description. A movie within a movie about the creation of a movie, it is an exhilarating mix of reality, fantasy, and dark humor, filled with satire and sharp performances. The concept revolves around screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), who battles writer’s block while trying to adapt the book The Orchid Thief by New Yorker scribe Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). The story mirrors that of the real-life Charlie Kaufman, who struggled mightily to adapt Orlean's novel about John Laroche (played by Chris Cooper), who poaches rare orchids in Florida's Everglades. Kaufman (the character) has an identical twin brother, Donald (also played by Cage), a freeloading lunk who inflates Charlie’s frustrations, fears, and delusions by taking a quickie screenwriting course with guru Robert McKee (Brian Cox) and selling a serial-killer flick for a cool million at the height of Charlie’s despair. Playing with the boundaries of fact and fiction, the film intersperses bits of The Orchid Thief adaptation with Charlie's other struggles -- namely, women and the world of moviemaking. The result blurs everyone’s perceptions of what’s real, what’s make-believe, and…what’s the difference, anyway? Few movies have been this provocative and playful since 1999’s Being John Malkovich, which Kaufman wrote and brought to the screen with Adaptation director Spike Jonze. Fans of that gem will exult as Malkovich, Jonze, and Malkovich stars John Cusack and Catherine Keener show up for cleverly interwoven cameos. Adaptation's three lead performers, each Academy Award nominated, make this tricky material work brilliantly: Streep exercises her penchant for humor; Cage recaptures the offbeat appeal he mastered in such films as Raising Arizona; and Cooper's turn is simply revelatory, earning him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. A bold and sly homage to the pains of the creative process, Adaptation proves that the real Kaufman is among the screen's most creative processors.

Barnes & Noble - Peter Marchand

Critics charged with the divine headache of describing Adaptation, in all its twisted magnificence, should find it appropriate that the story concentrates on the paralysis of writer's block, brought on by the impossible urge to say everything. The sophomore collaboration between screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze is so drenched with unorthodox ideas, yet so fundamentally accessible, that it actually outdoes the groundbreaking Being John Malkovich in existential pretzel logic, while remaining digestible to a middle-brow audience. Kaufman's real-life struggles adapting Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief get brilliantly expanded into a self-reflexive narrative of sublime originality, in which screenwriter, author, and muse become intertwined, and such rich topics as artistic integrity, social awkwardness, and sibling rivalry get teased and prodded. Not only has Kaufman written himself into the proceedings, but in Nicolas Cage, he's found an exquisite choice to interpret himself and his twin brother -- an imaginary character given "real" life by receiving a screenwriting credit. Sweating, stammering, lowering his eyes, and imploding in a crisis of relevance -- then doing just the opposite as Donald -- Cage kicks his own career out of neutral, at least briefly exchanging the hunt for ever-bigger paychecks with work that truly matters. Although the stories of Orlean (Meryl Streep) and John Laroche (Chris Cooper) both carry a vital urgency, this is Kaufman's film, full of the anxieties of a kinky-haired shlub whose overactive imagination is both his meal ticket and his curse. Inasmuch as it eventually imitates the very story structure it abhors, Adaptation is the rare film that both attacks and revels in the humbling, soul-crushing yet exhilarating mechanics of Hollywood moviemaking.

All Movie Guide

Screenwriting this smart, inventive, passionate and rip-roaringly funny is a rare species. It's magic.

Rolling Stone - Peter Travers

May not be the first movie to examine the creative process. But it's the most playfully brilliant.

Washington Post - Desson Howe

What a bewilderingly brilliant and entertaining movie this is.

Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert

It's typical of the nerve, the bravado, the sheer giddy playfulness and sense of fun that characterize what has to be the boldest and most imaginative studio film of the year.

Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan