:: 2.15.2003 ::

Adaptation
This is a clever movie. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman hinges his plot on artistic ambivalence, resolving the artist's inner conflict by merging his two competing instincts into one hybrid story. It's a movie about a screenwriter, but not just any screenwriter, it's about Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of Adaptation. And, yes, the film Kaufman is writing is Adaptation. When he figures out what his movie is going to be about, we figure out what Adaptation is about. Get it? If so, then you’ve got it, and there’s no need to sit through the real thing.

The film unfolds as a semi-comical tale of anxiety and neurosis. Charlie, the insecure screenwriter with "integrity," is suffering from writer's block; his twin brother Donald, the sweet and uncomplicated hack, is slapping together a Se7en-style psycho thriller with the greatest of ease. Charlie has a creative epiphany when he attends a screenwriting seminar. How clever, right? The screenplay tightens up and finds a purpose after the screenwriter character attends a seminar. After all the big-name stars and cameos in this film, so much self-reference seems less like a play-within-a-play and more like a Hollywood in-joke. It is self-conscious and frequently self-loathing. You may feel as if you're getting cheated an hour into the film, and even after the delightfully surprising confluence at the end, the feeling doesn't fully wear off. It doesn't help the Adaptation team that the whole filmmaker-looking-for-inspiration theme is exactly that of Fellini's landmark 8 1/2.

Director Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman teamed up once before on the clever and creative (and perhaps even philosophical) Being John Malkovich. After watching Adaptation, I began reevaluating Jonze's music video career, and I can see clearly now that he's always relied too much on cute gimmicks. The guy on fire in the Wax video was thirteen seconds of film played in ultra-slow motion to make it last the whole song. The Björk video for "It's Oh So Quiet" was just a Technicolor musical—a whimsical pop culture reference leaving nothing to hang on to after the initial "Oh, I see what he’s doing." The Weezer video for "Buddy Holly" was a special effects trick within a nostalgic TV theme. The low-fi mall dance attack for Fatboy Slim’s "Praise You" actually highlighted the repetitiveness of a great radio song. The Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video—again, just a simple '70s cop show parody. This explains why in Adaptation, Jonze virtually disappears; he has no unique visual style, and I don’t think he’d have a film career if he couldn’t piggy-back on Charlie Kaufman’s inventive writing.

Barely worth mentioning are the principal actors, Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage. For such highly esteemed actors, they sure are boring to watch on film. I'll take Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey any day (I sneaked into How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days before Adaptation started and was pleasantly surprised by Hudson's very Goldie Hawn-like charm. She is not as cute as her mother, but in that tiny body she has womanly grace and sophistication, polished off with a killer smile. Seems like an excellent date movie!) Nicolas Cage is grotesque; he plays twin brothers Charlie (schlub) and Donald (schmuck). Incidentally, there's an indirect Coppola connection here worth pointing out—Spike Jonze is married to Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, whose nephew is Nicolas Cage. I would recommend renting The Godfather or even The Virgin Suicides (which Sofia directed) before I would suggest you see this movie.

Overall, Adaptation is a clever concept and mostly enjoyable, but it's visually uninteresting and ultimately unsatisfying. Kaufman's attempt at allowing the viewer to participate in the making of the film leaves one feeling like one should have been paid for all that work.

:: Posted by Anonymous @ 2:17 AM [+] ::
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