Adaptation (2002)

Spike Jonze's film Adaptation tells the story of a screenwriter's struggle to write a script while his twin brother, who had never previously written a script, is writing a successful one. The main character is trying to write a film based on a book about orchids, but the film could be about almost anything. The film also goes back and forth in time talking about how the book was written and the characters the book was based on. Eventually all the characters from the past and present meet each other leading to a fairly interesting conclusion.

The leads in this film were played by Nicholas Cage and Meryl Streep. They both play their parts fairly well and were nominated for Academy Awards for their performance. Chris Cooper had a fairly significant supporting role and did win an Academy Award for his performance. I didn't find him quite as memorable as Cage, but he was still quite good for a supporting role.

The idea of a film dealing with writer's block is nothing new. In that sense this film is similar to David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. and Frederico Fellini's 8½. I found this film better than Mulholland Dr. but clearly inferior to 8½. Unlike the two aforementioned films, this plot is fairly straightforward. It isn't told in an exactly linear sequence, but it is rather easy to piece together the information presented.

While this film is by no means a bad film, I do not think it accomplished much that 8½ didn't already accomplish. This film may be more entertaining than Fellini's film, but I would venture to guess that this film will not be remembered forty years from now whereas 8½ will remain one of the crowning achievements of cinema.

71/100
C-

UP NEXT: The penultimate film in my film class, Timecode.

horible score and doesnt sound to good