Wacky, Wonderful 'Adaptation' Defies Conventional Movie Logic

"Adaptation"

"Adaptation" might be the worst adaptation of any book ever brought to the screen. That said, it's easily one of the best films of the year and surely the most deliriously clever.

It comes from the refreshingly absurd and fertile imaginations of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze. They last teamed up for "Being John Malkovich," an ingenious and twisted marvel in its own right. Yet "Adaptation" makes "Malkovich" seem plain and tall by comparison.

Kaufman was asked to write a screenplay of Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," a nonfiction book chronicling the obsession of a Florida flower poacher. But Kaufman struggled with the task, going so far as to mutate his screenplay into the story of his struggle to adapt the book. And that's the film we're now watching.

"Adaptation" revels in itself, ripping apart its source material and becoming a movie about itself. We're actually watching the movie that the characters in "Adaptation" are fighting mightily to produce. Or are we?

Part of the sharp charm of "Adaptation" is that nothing's certain. Nicolas Cage offers a performance so bleakly hilarious and painful that he finally seems to have deserved his Oscar. He plays both Charlie and his identical twin brother, the hyper-confident Donald -- who doesn't exist in real life but who is credited with co-writing the screenplay. Meryl Streep, liberated as Orlean, and Chris Cooper, a ranting and raving revelation as orchid thief John Laroche, have a decidedly different relationship in "Adaptation" as they did in real life.

Cooper, a journeyman character actor, nearly steals the movie from Cage -- that's quite a feat, considering that Cage embodies two fully realized characters, a remarkable acting coup that never falters. But Cooper is that commanding in his career's most bizarre role. He transforms himself as the filthy, toothless and strangely brainy everyman with scars to spare. It was a stroke of brilliant casting by Jonze, choosing the dramatic Cooper for such a comical role.

The normally strait-laced Streep shows a real flair for the absurdist comedy as well, displaying a knack for comic timing as the curious, conflicted author. It's a credit to Streep's familiar and free performance that the audience cares so much for Orlean, who behaves in a way so different from the real Orlean that a lawsuit would've been understandable.

The mind-bending doesn't end there -- the film is a kaleidoscope of inside jokes, each more amusing than the one before. In one scene, Charlie decides he's adverse to voice-over narration in his screenplay, and from that point on, there's no more narration in "Adaptation" either.

But the film exists outside of its cleverness, too. The actors inject their trapeze act with a deep heart, and the overweight, confidence-cracked Charlie emerges as an emotional hero, battling his integrity and looking for love around every corner and on every page. We root for him, especially when his world starts caving in as his film concludes.

Much of the flak that "Adaptation" has taken focuses on its conclusion, with more than a few critics claiming Kaufman doesn't know how to end a story. But it says absolutely nothing about the greatness of "Adaptation" to note that its final act is wretched -- a dramatic train wreck, really -- because it's designed that way. The film is literally about the collision between the conclusion and the rest of the film.

Like its ending, "Adaptation" is gloriously self-indulgent entertainment. Kaufman fought with himself to create something, and in the process he created something of everything -- a sarcastic, melancholic comedy that's equal parts cold Hollywood expos