If you saw Being John Malkovich, then you are familiar with the demented world of screenwriter Charles Kaufman.

And you are already lined up to buy a ticket to his newest film, Adaptation.

Adaptation is, among other things, the story of Kaufman's attempts to adapt a nonfiction book for the screen -- Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief -- and it's about his writer's block, his insecurities, filmmaking in general, the idiocies of the Hollywood system and a whole pack of contemporary, angst-causing issues. On the movie-making front, this one feels like standing in a hall of mirrors.

The film ricochets back and forth between story-lines. Here is Kaufman, trying and failing to write the screenplay for The Orchid Thief, despairing as he goes and endlessly beating himself up for being fat, bald, sweaty, a loser.

Simultaneously, he watches his idiot twin brother succeed effortlessly in screenwriting, socializing and womanizing.

And beside all of that are events from The Orchid Thief, which is a book about flowers, change, passion and survival. The Orchid Thief concerns charismatic flower hunter John Laroche and what he does as observed and written up by New Yorker writer Susan Orlean.

There is, eventually, a head-on collision between the anxiety-ridden Kaufman, his cheerful twin brother, orchid hunter John Laroche and journalist Susan Orlean.

And here are the players: Charles Kaufman and his twin brother Donald (or imaginary twin, depending upon how you view these things) are played by Nicolas Cage; John Laroche is portrayed by the brilliant and underrated Chris Cooper, and Susan Orlean is played by Meryl Streep.

The performances are downright exhilarating. Adaptation is wise, cruelly observant of human nature and hysterically funny, provided you can laugh at crippling depression.

We're betting you can.

The odd thing is this -- viewers seem divided on just what happens in the third act of the movie. Some view the bizarre proceedings as a philosophical sell-out, others as a welcome escalation of the insane mental machinations of the screenwriter.

Either way you look at it, Kaufman took a huge risk in creating the weirdly interior Adaptation, a film about writing a film from the perspective of ... inside his own head.

It is astonishing how much Kaufman and director Spike Jonze have to say about life, love and creating art -- oh, yeah, and orchids -- within that construct.

(This film is rated AA)

More Movie Reviews