Adaptation (2002)

Charlie Kaufman: Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliche......Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems or anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that.

Adaptation is as close to an autobiography that you can get from Kaufman. After the success of Being John Malkovich, Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) tries to adapt a non-fiction book, "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orleans (Meryl Streep) into a movie. Trying to show that a movie can be just about simple things where nothing ever happens, he goes into a writer's block and is not able to get started.

Charlie has brought in a fictional twin brother, Donald Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), who is everything that he is not. As Charlie asks, "That you and I share the same DNA, can there be anything more lonely than that"? Charlie keeps feeling embarrassed by Donald's ways when he keeps flirting with women in his crew, and also the fact that Donald is not an intellectual like him. When Donald comes to stay with him while being enrolled in a seminar on how to make movies, Charlie pokes fun at the gurus who claim to know how movies are done. In a scene, he explains, "I don't want to bring in sex or guns or car chases, or characters learning profound lessons or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. Because life isn't like that. You know, it just isn't. And I feel strongly about it". As he struggles to get going on his task, he finds it increasingly difficult to find a story to make the movie. In the meantime, Donald's script of a thriller, "The 3", seems to have been liked by most people in the industry. Finally, in an act of desperation, he turns to his brother for help and finds himself attending a seminar on making movies by the same guru. While asking a question on how to deal with a movie where nothing ever happens or where the characters don't have a moment of epiphany,  he gets scolded by the guru for saying that nothing ever happens in life.  As he gets his brother to help him on his script, we see a twist in the movie with "sex, guns and car chases".

People who say that the ending was very "Hollywood style", well, that was the point. As the script for his movie and his own life run parallel, we get to see the whole joke about it. Like the guru says, "The last act makes a film. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit".

Rating: 7.5/10