Movie Review - Adaptation

Nicholas Cage is fond of being the action-hero type - tough, craggy, dangerous. The problem is, he hasn't really looked in a mirror lately. Cage isn't action-hero handsome and instead of using that to his advantage, he signs up for movies that play to his ego rather than his strengths. (There wasn't anything wrong with National Treasure, for example - it was a travelogue of my last four vacations - but would the movie have been even better with Sean Bean in the lead and some other schlub as the bad guy? And is anybody really thrilled to see that ghost biker movie he's promoting right now?)

In Adaptation, Cage gives a fabulous performance. By playing against type. And, according to some movie notes I read, by playing the part not as he would have liked to play it but as the director insisted. He should listen more often.

Adaptation is the story of a pair of screenwriting brothers - Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Charlie writes deep-mind theater, while Donald writes scream-happy crap. Donald is becoming happily successful. Charlie is depressed, cranky and resentful, not to mention frustrated. He's just coming off his film "Being John Malkovich", which is another odd mind bender. That movie and this one rub elbows quite a bit, so you'll see a lot of familiar faces, including Maggie Gyllenhaal in a small role, and Malkovich himself, briefly, in the very beginning. (You should watch "Malkovich" first just to make it easier to figure out what's going on.)

Charlie is in the midst of trying to adapt a book called 'The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). It's about a woman who writes an article about an orchid thief (Chris Cooper) and then expands it into a book that really doesn't have a narrative thread. Charlie is practically pulling his balding hair out trying to figure out what to say. He wants to meet Orlean but gets too shy to do so, so he has his twin brother do it. Donald, always more socially adjusted, realizes something is up.

Cage is perfect as the neurotic, balding, odd duck Charlie, and even has fun as the more self-assured yet self-delusional Donald. Charlie's worried eyes and slumped posture fit perfectly with Cage's nasal voice and creased forehead.

Streep is good as Orlean (the dial tone scene is funny), and Chris Cooper breathes life into another odd-duck character John LaRoche, who flits from obsession to obsession without a shred of self-recrimination or introspection. This is Cooper at his oddly creepiest, yet LaRoche is very clear on who he is, while many of the other characters (not to spoil anything) are still trying to find that connection to self.

If this sounds ambitious, it is. We don't really understand the obsession with orchids, but it's not really about that anyway. It's about, no surprise, adaptation. Who are we? How do we make do with who we are and where we are? What makes us happy and connected?

This is one of those 'critics-darling' movies, and I'll be honest in saying I'd rather just be entertained. When the movie takes on its action angle, it's mocking itself and its characters, but after a while, I sat with furrowed brow, wondering where this is going and how it all can go so wrong. I prefer redemption for my characters, and it's true Charlie finds it by the end, but too many other souls have gone wrong by that point to make it feel worthwhile. Anyway, I'll be honest and show my lack of class and say in the end the film got a little too artsy-fartsy for me, even though I did like the line, "Catherine Keener is in my house???"

Animal Trauma: None that I could see, although I did watch an edited version taped from Oxygen network. However, having to see Cooper's bare butt is enough to make you cringe.

Overall: It's ambitious but alienating and a little slow. I give it two and a half roses out of five.