“Adaptation”
The 2002 film “Adaptation” is a film with an interestingly scripted plot, that is, interestingly enough, about the act of writing a script. At first it looks like an ordinary movie, but early on the viewer realizes that they are watching a movie about the making of the very same movie. The film challenges the intellectual barrier between reality and storytelling in film. It is a large and complex self-reference that keeps the viewer interested and continues to fire curiosity even after the viewing of the film is complete.
Although the film uses some entirely unique and innovative ideas about storytelling, the script of the film is structured with a standard scenario of exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution. In the exposition the audience is introduced to the self-loathing and frustrated Charlie Kaufman, who is a moderately successful Hollywood screenwriter. A film studio asks him to adapt a screenplay based on a non-fiction book called “The Orchid Thief,” by Susan Orlean. Even in these first scenes, the audience is introduced to the clever self-reference and blurring of the lines between reality and fiction. First there is a scene on the set of “Being John Malkovich,” a known film that was also written by Charlie Kaufman that in real life had been produced and was very successful. Also, we are shown a scene in which Charlie Kaufman has dinner with a studio executive, and he mocks the clichés of Hollywood films, all of which we will ultimately see in the resolution of the film. He says he doesn’t want to write a script in which any characters “learn profound life lessons” or “overcome obstacles to succeed,” both of which he, as the main character, will eventually do. He also states that he does not want to turn the film into anything like an “orchid heist movie,” or about “drug running,” and he scoffs at the idea of a romantic angle between the character of Susan Orlean and the subject of her book, John...