Hamsun (1996)

Adaptation: the best films of 2002.
Nicolas Cage is wonderful here. His performance is completely convincing. You never doubt for a moment that there are really twins on screen together. Chris Cooper is excellent as John Laroche, probably the movie's most interesting character. I'm very pleased that he won the Oscar for this role.

It has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding movie-viewing experiences, I've had in a long time. See it more than once and let it forever alter your perspective on Hollywood films.

Why Adaptation is So Good
Adaptation is one of those movies that most folks don't seem to appreciate. I have a friend who I respect a great deal and who is also in this group of people. She wanted to know why I would rate the film so highly when I'm clearly not stupid. "It's amazing and deep," I told her. "Really, how so?" she asked me. And when I thought about it, I found that though I felt very strongly about my statement, I could not tell her why I felt this way. I decided to watch the film again with this in mind and here is what I discovered...

The film opens with Charlie asking himself the age-old questions about who he is and why he exists. We're then taken through a few scenes that simultaneously set up Charlie as a man who is clearly a passionate intellectually--perhaps even a genius--yet thoroughly uncomfortable in his own skin. He's looking not just for his place in the world, but his place within himself. I think that this distinction is key in the film.

Charlie is trying to find himself by stretching his creative process through his writing. I don't think that he knows that he's on a personal search in this process--he just knows that he has to reach deep within to create his screenplay or he will not be satisfied. He's scared of this exploration and his fear keeps him from writing what he wants to write, how he wants to write it. This is analogous to his life, where fear is preventing him from doing a number of things. Most importantly, it's preventing him from knowing himself.

His fear also comes to light in his dating life. He does not believe that he has worth and therefore he can not see that the woman he is interested in is also interested in him. This is so pronounced to be almost ridiculous as to the audience she is clearly not just fiends but thinks that she is dating him and wants to move the relationship forward.

The parallel story of Susan and Laroche is also one of searching. Susan is not happy but does not know it. She realized that she has a lack of passion (as a counter point to Charlie) and discovers that she is not just unhappy but is also full of an undefined want. Laroche is full of passion but is unfulfilled and looks outside of himself for fulfillment--throwing himself into things to try to develop and understand his passion. His lack of growth is played out metaphorically by leading to his fate at the end of the movie.

When I first started looking at Laroche in the context of the film, I felt that he was an underdeveloped (though very fun and funny) character in the face of the other, deeper characters of Susan and Charlie. Upon further inspection I realized that we do get to know him a great deal and that my initial feeling matched one of the main points of the film. I wanted Laroche to learn something--as characters do in "Hollywood" movies. He does not truly learn anything and that leads to his fate--which is in itself a very Hollywood thing in a very un-Hollywood film.

When Susan and Laroche make a dial tone together, they begin to see that they are what they are looking for in each other. Unfortunately Susan just finds something to be passionate about, but does not deal with her desire to be passionate and lack of understanding of passion. She gains an understanding at a terrible price by the end of the film. She does this by only looking outside of herself and not looking inside.

Charlie's brother Donald is at the same time someone who Charlie wants to be and someone who he does not want to be. Charlie wants to retain his introspective genius and gain Donald's easy nature. When Charles starts to ask for/accepts Donald's help, Charlie begins to find the things in himself that he's missing. It's less of a journey of discovery and more of a journey of action. The key to this journey of action, however, is that he is open to its lessons due to the great amount of work he's done looking into himself. Once he sees that the journey is about him, he can take its lessons truly to heart.

Susan's desire to be a baby--to be new--relates to us the seriousness of taking a journey outside of one's self to see inside without a simultaneous and perhaps deeper journey inside.

The "Hollywood" nature of the film that is not thought of as a "Hollywood movie" is genius. Charles breaks all of the rules of writing to create a masterpiece save for one--to find that thing, that conflict, that something that happens. Everything that Charlie does not want in the movie is in the movie--but none of it comes off as being "Hollywood." This is masterful. And he uses the character of the screenwriting lecturer--the guy who is prepackaging the writing process as though it's a formula--to show that it is a formula, but it is one that mixed properly, can produce something that you don't expect--something that is better and feels different than anything before it, though it still uses all of the things that you're used to and that you expect.

So upon this further reflection, I have an answer for my friend. Adaptation is amazing and deep because the journey of personal discovery that's taken in very small but deeply significant steps is seriously touching and important. To realize that these small steps in life can take you such a far distance is a powerful thing. Combining that lesson with the technical excellence used by Spike Jonze with one actor for two roles along with the writing genius of using and calling out all of the things you expect in a "Hollywood movie" in this "art house" film makes Adaptation an important and soul-stirring movie.

Smart, entertaining and about as original as they come; I can't see how anyone could be disappointed...
A big reason why I think I love `Adaptation' so much is the mere fact that I thought I was going to hate it. Aside from Meryl Streep, who is unarguably a goddess of film, there really isn't anyone in the cast who draws me, and Nicolas Cage in my humble opinion is a terrible actor. So, it's safe to say that my expectations for this film were very low and so when the film grabbed me by the collar and drew me in for it's entirety I was blown away by my response to it. `Adaptation' truly is a brilliant film. It's witty, quirky, funny, engrossing and, above all else, truly original.

The film revolves around screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as he attempts to adapt a non-fiction novel for the screen, a novel that upon reading he discovers is unadaptable. This novel, entitled `The Orchid Thief', is somewhat plotless and ultimately boring. While the idea and or proposition was flattering the task is proving to be a much bigger one then Charlie had initially intended. But Charlie has more than just this one problem in his lap. Charlie's twin brother has suffered a sudden serge of writers fever and his apparent niche for the profession is driving Charlie mad. As Charlie battles himself over how to proceed with the script we see in flashbacks the writer Susan Orlean as she meets and falls deeply in love the `the orchid thief' himself John Laroche.

This film is truly an actor's showcase with everyone in the cast taking a hold of their character and fleshing them out beautifully. Chris Cooper is fantastic as the eccentric Laroche and Meryl Streep is her usual brilliance, but this time raising the bar so-to-speak. Her performance as Susan Orlean is deliciously orgasmic. She's stunning, heartbreaking, impish and completely insane, all within seconds of one another and they all mesh so well with the character she's created. She becomes the focus of our attention, especially as the film draws to a close.

Nicolas Cage though is undoubtedly the star of this film and he delivers more than I ever thought he would. I personally find Cage to be a bore of an actor who rarely ever sells it. I've found him intriguing in a few films but never to the magnitude that is `Adaptation'. Here, playing two completely different characters, he is able to distinguish them as separate while still building a foundation of similarity to classify them as brothers, as twins. He's reserved, quiet and agitated one minute, then outlandish, outgoing and obnoxious the next. I still am in shock at how wonderfully on point he really was here.

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is a brilliant writer and his films are some of the most ingenious of the bunch. I can see this happening to him, his taking `The Orchid Thief' and wondering just how he is going to make it approachable and entertaining and then it hits him and `Adaptation' is born. Coincidentally that is just what happened here for the film is based off of Kaufman's struggle to adapt this very novel. Who ever thought a movie about flowers would be this engrossing.

I highly recommend this masterclass of a film to anyone wanting a unique and intriguing trip through the world of modern cinema. It rarely gets better than this.