The Great Movies III

So you see how the movie could have been a doc. But the title is a pun, referring both to Darwinian principle of adaptation and the ordeal of adapting a book into a screenplay. Although its soul is comic, and it indulges in shameless invention, it is also the most accurate film I have seen about this process-exaggerated, yes, but true. We meet Charlie Kaufman and his (fictitious) twin brother, Donald, both played by Nicolas Cage, who finds subtle ways so that we can always tell them apart. They're like the twins in the old joke, one pessimistic, one optimistic ("There must be a pony in here somewhere").

The movie opens with Charlie's voiceover cataloging his flaws: he's too fat, balding, needs exercise, has no talent, etc. So inspired is Donald by his brother's struggle that he decides to write one of his own, after taking the famous screenwriting seminars of Robert McKee (Brian Cox). Charlie has only scorn for McKee and great doubts about Donald's story idea, which involves a madman and a woman who are the same person with multiple personalities. But how, asks Charlie, do you put them in the same scene together, when one has the other locked in the basement?

Charlie sweats blood over his screenplay. His copy of the book is thick with Post-It notes, the text painted with yellow and red highlighters. He has highlighted about everything. In a sneaky way, a good part of the movie is just Charlie reading the book to us. Then he develops an erotic fixation with the author, Susan (Meryl Streep), masturbating while imagining her bending tenderly to administer to him. He even flies to New York to meet her, but is paralyzed with shyness.

The third major character is John Laroche (Oscar winner Chris Cooper), a swamp rat with no front teeth who lives at home with his dad and describes himself as "probably the most brilliant man I know." At one time, he tells Susan, he had the largest collection of Dutch mirrors in the world. At another, he had a rare collection of tropical fish. He is the only man he knows who can breed the rare Ghost Orchid under glass. When he tires of an obsession, he drops it cold. "Finished with fish," he says, and in context, it's one of the movie's funniest lines.

Having placed these characters onstage (as well as a studio executive played byTilda Swinton, an agent played by JayTavare, and various Indians and park rangers), Kaufman intercuts their scenes with scenes of himself creating them, and scenes from a McKee story conference. He lists all the things he hates in blockbusters: the chase, the shootings, the sex.

And now I must tread carefully, so as not to spoil surprises (everything I've described so far is just the setup). Without going into details, what Kaufman does is create scenes that merge fact with his creative despair, his erotic imagination, and the very kinds of scenes he loathes. Some of these scenes are possibly libelous. The real Orlean and Laroche must have signed waivers abandoning every possible legal recourse; they were very good sports. The scenes are also wildly audacious and hilarious, and you have the instinct that a few of them, such as Laroche driving Orlean in his van and taking her into the swamp, are "based on" truth. That's quite a van, by the way; it not only smells like things are growing in it, but they are.

I will observe that the final chapter on the DVD menu is titled "Deus Ex Machina."Wikipedia splendidly explains the term: "improbable contrivance in a story characterized by a sudden unexpected solution to a seemingly intractable problem."That is exactly what it is, writing Kaufman out of an impossible hole by violating all of his standards.

The performances are wonderful. When Streep's character ingests an obscure Indian drug, wriggles her toes, and does a phone-tone duet with Laroche, you wonder what other actress could have done it so well. Watch Swinton's studio executive closely during her first luncheon with Charlie. As he describes his grandiose and inflamed ideas, she ties to smile twice, in rapid succession, both smiles breaking down into doubts. Body movements very small, very perfect. Cooper pulls off the feat of making a repulsive character into a plausible romantic object for the author, because of Laroche's brilliance and enthusiasm. At first sight, he would rank last on any list of lovers for an elegant New Yorker writer.