Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, a tribute to the pain of writing (movie review)

I was watching one of my favorite movies the other night, Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, and it got me thinking about how all writers share a common bond. We all work to please an audience (except poets... pphht selfish). We (almost) all need to do research. We all know the joy/pain of searching for exactly the right word or phrase. This movie shows the pain of writing in exquisitely horrible detail. It's wonderful.

So, I decided to write an impromptu movie review of it. It’s long and doesn’t have a lot to do with technical writing, but hey, it’s my blog, after all!

Anyone who knows Kaufman knows that he excels at writing twisted, hard-to-follow plots that are as fascinating as they are confusing. In fact, it's almost exhilarating when you finally figure out what the heck is going on! Adaptation is no exception.

The plot centers on Kaufman himself, as he tries to write an adaptation of the book The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean (real book and real person, I looked it up). This book is about the beauty of flowers, and Charlie decides he wants to show that beauty in his movie without contrived plot elements. He describes this decision during a crucial scene with a producer early in the movie... pay attention! It'll add a lot to your enjoyment of the movie later on, heh.

Meanwhile, his live-in twin brother, Donald, is taking a screen-writing seminar, which Charlie initially despises as a money-grabbing gimmick, but which later proves his salvation of sorts. Donald (who's none too bright) is also writing his own screenplay, called The 3. This movie is about a killer who kidnaps a girl and slowly dismembers her, while a cop tries frantically to track them down. The catch? All three people are in the head of one person... multiple personalities! "How," Charlie asks, "do you write a movie where the main character is in a police station and is, at the same time, being dismembered in a basement?" An excellent question, but not one that worries Donald, whose amazingly umm... interesting ideas include a car chase scene where the cop follows the killer on horseback. "It's, like, technology versus horse," Donald patiently explains to an incredulous Charlie.

All this sounds pretty simple, right? It isn't!

Stop reading now if you haven't seen this movie yet. Then, go rent it (don't buy it; it's a great movie but you probably won't want to watch it more than once a year or so). Then, watch it. Then, come back here and continue reading!

Charlie has a LOT of trouble deciding how to adapt the book. It's a book about the beauty of flowers, yet nothing really happens in it. How to write an engaging movie about such a book? It doesn't help that Charlie's personal life is a complete mess. His self-confidence is shot. He's scared of talking to any pretty girl. He fantasizes about every woman he meets and masturbates constantly. He derides himself as fat, bald, untalented, lazy... the list goes on and on (and on). He's in love with a woman who obviously likes him, but whom he can't even get the courage to kiss when frequent opportunities present themselves. And, to top everything off, he learns that Donald's screenplay is being purchased... for a million dollars!

As he writes his screenplay, we are transported to Orlean’s autobiographical experiences as she meets the orchid thief himself and learns about the passions of orchid collectors. Indeed, the book isn't so much about orchids as it is about passion itself... Orlean longs to feel passionate about something, anything, the way these people feel about orchids. But is that a movie? Charlie can't figure out a way to make it one.

Then, the movie really gets interesting. As we follows Charlie's struggles to write his script, we slowly begin to realize he's writing the script for THIS movie! Oh, what a convoluted, circular, wonderfully incomprehensible concept! We experience his manic retelling of this entire movie to that point, right up to the spot where he's retelling his RETELLING. But how to end such a movie?

Enter Donald! At his urging, Charlie goes to New York to meet Susan Orlean, but he chickens out when he enters her work building and sees her in the elevator. Donald tells him that his screenwriting instructor, Robert McKee, is in NYC for a special seminar, so Charlie, in desperation, goes and pitches his movie idea. He tries to explain what he's trying to do, making a movie where nothing happens because, "nothing like that really happens in the world." At which point the instructor tells a mortified Charlie in front of 500 people that he doesn't want to waste his time with such a movie. In a spectacular monologue, McKee rants, "Nothing happens in the world? .... People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life." he also tells everyone that voiceovers are lazy writing. At the very instant he says it, the movie stops using voiceover narration (which it had hitherto relied heavily on).

Charlie tracks down McKee after the seminar and, over a drink, McKee tells him that a great movie only needs a great ending, no matter how messed up it is before that (which is poignant since we now know he's describing this movie, though he doesn't know it). He also cautions Charlie never to use deus ex machina (an improbable, unexpected occurrence that helps the heroes overcome their obstacles). His parting words are that Casablanca, the best screenplay ever written, was created by twins. Charlie needs to work with Donald.

From that point on, the movie becomes a delightfully Donald-esque thriller. It also manages to include every single thing Charlie swore he wouldn't put in his movie, including a deus ex machina (and a tiny bit more voiceover). I won't give away the ultimate ending, but it's a shocker that might leave you a little choked up... and a little hopeful about your own future.

Taken at face value, the movie goes from being unfathomably difficult to follow to consisting entirely of overbearingly formulaic action. However, it works not because of what's on screen, but because we understand that what's on screen is what the characters are writing WHILE they're on screen. It's amazing to see when and how Charlie decided to write what we've already seen, very fun to watch as we recognize all of the plot elements Charlie swore he didn't want to include, and an epiphany when we realize that Donald has started writing the ending that we’re watching.

In short, it's an exhilarating ride that any writer should appreciate!