Pulse Editor
Jacquelyn Lewis
Thursday, January 16,2003
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Oregon Daily Emerald
On Tuesday
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Adaptation takes strange and then makes it stranger
Movie review
Aaron Shakra
Pulse Reporter
“Adaptation” is a film that’s a living, breathing, thing. In one
sense, writing a review of it makes about as much sense as trying
to write a review of your best friend, or someone you love. Clearly,
words are not the best method to accurately describe such a thing.
Any attempt is predisposed to failure, and the words unwittingly
shift in the opposite direction of clarity.
Of course, there are people who must have at least an inkling of
what they’re getting into before they go see something like a
movie. For the benefit of such a demographic, I’ll go ahead and try
— emphasis on try — to describe a film that largely defies expla
nation when it comes down to the question of “What’s it about?”
Sure, there’s a skeleton, or frame of a plot, which is, this is a
movie about a man writing a movie (actually, adapting it from a
book about orchids). But from this foundation, the characters
and events of the film are a mixture of fiction and reality, the
implied point being the lack of difference between the two.
Much like the lives of the characters involved, the only narra
tive present is one utterly unpredictable and direction-less.
It might help to know that this work comes from director Spike
Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman, who crafted “Being John
Malkovich.” “Malkovich” is a wicked, weird adventure involving
portals into the consciousness of a movie star, office building half
floors and John Cusack as a puppeteer. If this sounds strange, and
if you haven’t seen the 1999 film, consider it required viewing for
“Adaptation.” Basically, “Adaptation” is on the whole, an even
stranger film. Or rather, it builds on “Malkovich” by taking the al
ready strange and making it stranger.
The film’s protagonist is screenwriter Kaufman himself, played
by Nicolas Cage. Cage/Kaufman attempts to adapt Susan Orlean’s
Courtesy
(also a real person, played wonderfully by Meryl Streep) book
“The Orchid Thief’ and ends up in personal crisis, which turns
Turn to Adaptation, page 4
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