The MacGuffins will select as their 11th team selection and 292nd overall pick, for entry in the
Wildcard category
:
Adaptation
I've written myself into my screenplay.
That's kind of weird, huh?
Smart. Clever. Original. Challenging. Has to be a Charlie Kaufman movie, right?!
Adaptation truly is one of a kind. A movie about a screenwriter trying to write a movie on a topic he knows nothing about, it doubles back on itself again and again until the lines between fiction and non-fiction, the whimsical and the serious, and reality and fantasy are blurred beyond recognition. Its screenplay has to be one of the most original in the history of cinema, and director Spize Jonze brings it all together marvelously.
I can just imagine the real Charlie Kaufman, sitting at home in his office, suffering from writer's block. Frustrated, "fat, bald, repulsive, and old," (lines from the film!) he finally decides on attempting to adapt a piece of non-fiction from the New Yorker titles "The Orchid Thief." But when the
adaptation proves to be more difficult than anticipated, he sets off on a research mission that takes him all across the country, meeting some colorful people and experiencing some crazy things along the way.
Still, his masterpiece continues to be an impossible task. Acting on the pressure of a studio executive appointed to get him to actually submit something, he decides to write himself into the screenplay (as well as the studio exec), introduce a (possibly imagined) twin brother for himself, and solve the problem of wrapping up the mess he's created by introducing voiceovers and a "deus ex machina" to the whole thing which is against the very advice of his screenwriting teacher (who he also decides to write into the screenplay). The end result is that Charlie himself undergoes a dramatic and wholly convincing
adaptation by the end of the third act, having unexpectedly become the main character in own screenplay.
Whew. That the actual movie comes out so splendidly is a testament to the brilliance of this layered, dual screenplay. It lost the Oscar to
The Pianist, and although that is also a superb movie,
Adaptation was robbed.
However, the stellar cast of actors also must be commended here. Streep, Cooper, and Swinton all deliver performances that stand out as some of the best of their respective careers, and Cage, playing two characters often onscreen at the same time, is remarkably good. At any given time viewers are able to tell Donald and Charlie apart without much in the way of visual clues, thanks to Cage's nuanced and subtle differences in playing the two characters. He's been in some really crappy movies over the years, and as a result sometimes is overlooked in debates about the great actors of his generation. Look no further than
Adaptation and you'll never exclude him again.
A tremendously complex film,
Adaptation almost requires multiple viewings to appreciate it on the many different levels it presents to its audience. It's one of my favorite films, having grown on me over time, and I'm sure will feel right at home on the MacGuffins roster!
