“...and God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you."

In this week’s class, we watched the film “Adaptation” directed by Spike Jonze in 2002. This movie is about a screenplay writer, Charlie Kaufman, who is at a standstill in writing a script based off of the book “The Orchid Thief,” written by Susan Orlean. Charlie lives with his twin brother Donald who also wants to write scripts. Charlie struggles to make his screenplay original and different while Donald creates a screenplay full of clichés and overused ideas. Charlie also has social issues and doesn’t exactly know how to talk to others in any way, shape, or form. Donald is everything that Charlie is not; the good and the bad. At the same time, Susan Orlean has an entirely different plot about writing the book and her experiences. Their stories come together in the end for a wild twist.

The entire film is about the process a writer goes through when writing a screenplay. The whole first half or maybe even three quarters of the film drags by slowly while Charlie struggles to create his screenplay. Then, in the last quarter, a bunch of random events happen in sequence. A ton of clichés seen in other films occur in this last part of the film, which is what makes it end so well. The main character changes his ways and everyone is happy, blah blah blah. The end is ironic because the entire time Charlie wants to avoid clichés at all costs. It was like the viewer was watching Charlie create the movie as the movie progressed. We never knew what was going to happen because he was still writing it. A very different style than I’m used to.

My favorite aspect of this movie is the relationship between Charlie and Donald. Charlie is mean to Donald throughout the film, but Donald continues to love and care for Charlie the entire time. Charlie wants something new and different while Charlie just wants to create something that will make money. They constantly bicker about what is right and wrong in writing, which is one of the funniest parts of the film. Some of my favorite quotes that reveal this bickering are:

Charlie: The script I'm starting, it's about flowers. Nobody's ever done a movie about flowers before. So, so there are no guidelines...
Donald: What about "Flowers for Algernon"?
Charlie: Well, that's not about flowers. And it's not a movie.
Donald: Ok, I'm sorry, I never saw it.

Donald: Hey, Charles. I pitched my script to mom.
Charlie: Don't say pitch.

Charlie: The only idea more overused than serial killers is multiple personality. On top of that, you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this.
Donald: Mom called it "psychologically taut".


Their relationship creates such an interesting dynamic in the film that really makes me lean towards the “liking the movie” side. In the end (of course), Charlie ends up learning from Donald and changing his ways because of it. What a lovely idea.

The last thing I want to comment on is the fact that voiceover was used a ton in this film. Every other scene had Charlie or Susan doing voiceover. It was really weird at first, but then I started to get used to it. It seemed to be the easiest way to reveal all of the thoughts of both characters. Of course, this also made it extremely funny when Charlie attended Robert McKee’s screenplay writing workshop where he said to never use voiceover.

The comedy was definitely present in this film, which is the main reason I enjoyed it. If you haven’t checked this film out, I suggest you do so! It’ll be interesting to see how you feel about it when it’s over!