Adaptation

Adaptation is a 2002 American meta comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. It features an ensemble cast led by Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Chris Cooper, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in supporting roles. Kaufman based Adaptation on his struggles to adapt Susan Orlean's 1998 nonfiction book The Orchid Thief while suffering from writer's block. It involves elements adapted from the book, plus fictitious elements, including Kaufman's twin brother (also credited as a writer for the film) and a romance between Orlean and John Laroche (Chris Cooper). It culminates in completely invented elements, including versions of Orlean and Laroche three years after the events of The Orchid Thief. Adaptation was praised for its direction, screenplay, humor, and the performances of Cage, Cooper, and Streep. It received awards at the 75th Academy Awards, 60th Golden Globe Awards, and 56th British Academy Film Awards, with Cooper winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Kaufman winning the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. A British Film Institute poll ranked it one of the thirty best films of the 2000s. Plot Self-loathing screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is hired to write the screenplay adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. He struggles with anxiety, social phobia, depression, and low self-esteem. His twin brother, Donald, has moved into his house and is freeloading there. Donald decides to become a screenwriter like Charlie and attends seminars by screenwriting guru Robert McKee.