Adaptation...

Note: I had meant to post this entry yesterday, but blogger was giving me problems. So here, for you pelasure, is the post...

Begins...
Caught up on the movie, Adaptation yesterday along with Melvin.
What a movie!! Thoroughly enjoyed it. Nicholas Cage was mindblowing, both as Charlie and Donald. And so Meryl Streep. Both actors prove their mettle here. Same with Chris Cooper, who plays John LaRouche, the Orchid Thief.
The screenplay by Charlie Kaufman was really good. Some really interesting twists in there. What really impressed me was how he managed to intertwine four interesting story arcs (Charlie's difficulty in adapting a book about flowerw into a screenplay, Donald's gay abandon as he scripts a 'thriller', Susan's yearning for a life that she cannot live and John's life as he moves from one obsession to another)into one single, coherent movie. Though the story in about Charlie, all the characters interact with each other. The movie swings from Charlie's cluelessness to Donald's carelessness, from Susan's sorrow to John's obsession with the orchid effortlessly.
And then there's he twist in the story in the last half hour. Truly bizzare.
Sample a few dialogues:
----
Donald Kaufman: You are what you love, not what loves you
----
Charlie Kaufman: You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?
----
Susan Orlean: Change is not a choice.
----
John Laroche : You know why I like plants?
Susan Orlean : Nuh uh.
John Laroche : Because they're so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.
Susan Orlean : [pause] Yeah but it's easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever's next. With a person though, adapting almost shameful. It's like running away.
----
Donald Kaufman: Is like technology versus horses.
----

All in all, I highly recommend this movie.