Adaptation vs Comedian

After Being John Malkovich, I think a lot of people expected Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman to go completely mainstream, churning out some traditional Hollywood comedy or thriller with big stars and product placements and one of those double-face movie posters. I thought they’d do the opposite: make a movie so out there and alternative that it would be so painfully cool as to be rendered unwatchable.  Somehow, amazingly, they landed somewhere in the middle, with Adaptation, which I think is just about the best movie of 2002.

Adaptation bends reality in a way I’ve not seen in a movie before.  It mixes fictional characters with real life actors, like the Player, and portrays fictionalized versions of real people, and events that happened in real life, maybe, and some that didn’t, maybe, and…let’s break this down for a second, okay?

Some characters in Adaptation are based on real people.  Susan Orlean, John Laroche, and Charlie Kaufman exist in our world, and many of the events in Adaptation happened to them.  They are played by actors.

Some characters in Adaptation are based on real people who play themselves, namely the cast of Being John Malkovich.

Some of the characters and events in Adaptation are complete fiction.  But they could have happened, and here’s what that would have been like.  Maybe.

Adaptation focuses on the life of Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) as he attempts to adapt Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, into a major motion picture.  Charlie thinks The Orchid Thief is a beautiful book, but he believes it to be primarily about flowers, and thus, practically unfilmable. Charlie doesn’t want to turn The Orchid Thief into a movie with guns (like Con-Air) or car chases (like The Rock) or forced endings where everyone learns a lesson about the value of life (like The Family Man).  He wants to keep the integrity of the book in tact and bring the love of flowers to the big screen as faithfully as possible.  His twin brother Donald (fictional, but credited as co-screenwriter) is his roommate and his exact opposite.  Almost.  Donald wants to be a screenwriter too, although he wants to make a mainstream Hollywood thriller about a cop and a serial killer who live in the same brain.  He recently signed up for a screenwriting seminar he believes will get him a big-time movie deal.  The leader of the seminar is played by Bryan Cox, because Adaptation is a movie, and Bryan Cox is in all movies.

Donald is completely laid back, and one of the least self-aware people alive.  In his house anyway.  Donald, despite being identical to Charlie physically, has an active social life that includes dating the sublime Maggie Gylennhaal (by “sublime” I mean weird and hot). Meanwhile Charlie gets to date no one, with the exception of the waitress from his…um, solo gigs.  You know, his one man show.  Get it?  A little five against one?  Nudge nudge?

As we get deeper into Charlie’s struggles with self-esteem (“I’m losing my hair.  I’m fat and repulsive.”) as well as his near-impossible screen-writing task, something interesting happens:  the focus switches from Charlie to Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep).  The story shifts to the past, where Susan Orlean is gathering information on orchid-poaching, toothless genius, John Laroche.  She wants to do a story on him for The New Yorker.  Laroche seems simple to her at first, but once she climbs into his van, she becomes intrigued and then obsessed with his confidence and expertise on basically every topic.

As the movie continues, the story leaps between scenes of Orlean and Laroche in the past and present, as well as Charlie’s attempts to write his screenplay, deal with his brother, and work up the nerve to ask out either that waitress or his platonic female friend.  Charlie’s writing scenes are so true and sad; especially the little deals he makes himself. He can have coffee if he writes some first. Maybe have coffee now, and then write some, and then he can have a muffin.  Maybe the muffin first.  I do that with candy, like Hot Tamales or Mike ‘n’ Ikes, or sometimes with TV. Or with surfing the internet.  Or with napping.

The last half hour of the movie, when Charlie’s life mixes with Donald’s ultimate movie ideas, Susan Orlean’s Lady Macbeth-style transformation and John Laroche’s obsessions, is not anything I could do justice to here.  I’ve spoken to some people who think the ending of Adaptation is a letdown, but I think it takes Adaptation beyond any obvious conclusion it could have had, and instead taps into the dark, crazy extremes of each character that have been hinted at the whole movie.  After Orlean’s behavior at the end of the movie, you’ll think differently of a seemingly meaningless early scene where she hides out for a moment in the bathroom during a dinner party. 

Adaptation, despite its gimmicks and stunts, features my favorite performances from last year.  Nicolas Cage gives what I consider to be the first Nicolas Cage performance in about six years.  He’s friggin’ brilliant. He plays Donald and Charlie as complete individuals without any vocal tricks or help from hair or make-up.  It’s two such specific performances that when Donald impersonates Charlie late in the movie, I kept thinking he was gonna get caught, not because he’s a moron, but because he was too different from Charlie. The special effects that put Charlie and Donald on screen together are far more impressive than any I’ve seen lately.  Charlie and Donald interact completely.  They’re not just standing side by side or sitting across the table from each other, but actually occupying space the way humans do.  The characters’ movements never seem restricted by the effects.  It probably sounds easy, but tell that to anyone who ever had to talk to JarJar Binks.

Meryl Streep gives the sexiest, funniest, oddest performance I’ve seen in a long long time.  Performing the simplest acts, like standing in an elevator, brushing her teeth, or in the movie’s best scene, listening to a dial tone, she is more than enough woman for Charlie and Donald and Toothless John and her cameo husband.  She makes Maggie Gylenhaal look like Winona Ryder without a backstage pass.

Meryl Streep, by the way, is not a supporting actress in this movie, despite what you’ve been told.

Chris Cooper rocks in Adaptation, like he does in pretty much everything else. After all the lust/fascination Meryl Streep inspired in me, I still wanted her to be with that toothless pornographer John Laroche. 

Ah, but Adaptation isn’t completely unique.  No, my friends, out there lies another pair of struggling artists.  One has had success in the past, and is re-evaluating his career, while trying to maintain some integrity.  The other is a shallow hack who only wants instant fame and success, no matter how cheesy he has to look getting there.  Charlie and Donald?  No, Jerry and Orny.

Comedian is a documentary following Jerry Seinfeld as he launches a new comedy tour.  His sitcom is long over, and Seinfeld has scrapped his old comedy act as well.  His upcoming stage show will feature all new jokes, and he’s hitting the clubs, trying out the new material.  In between gigs, he hangs with comedian friends, primarily Colin Quinn, but also George Wallace, Garry Shandling, Jay Leno, Bill Cosby and Chris Rock.  We get a so-far unseen look at this world.  The comedians in Comedian (well, most of them. I’ll get to the other one soon enough) are pretty much as you’d hope they’d be.  They’re easygoing and funny, but also neurotic and paranoid.  They know their job can be fun, but they aren’t willing to risk not working for it.  Seinfeld’s new act is actually pretty funny, but he has moments trying it out in clubs that prove his dilemma.  It might seem like a great idea to try out all new material after a couple decades as a stand-up, but tell that to Seinfeld during one scene, where he paces on stage, trying to figure out just what the hell he was going to say in the first place.

I really liked Seinfeld, but Seinfeld the guy I wasn’t so sure about.  He’s always pleasant and funny on talk shows, but I just knew he was gonna end up being a jerk in this movie.  I figured he’d be demanding and crabby and throwing money around.  Luckily, I was wrong.  He comes across pretty much like his TV persona, only less shallow (he’d almost have to be, right?).  Hanging with his friends, playing with his wife and kid on the beach, getting nervous before appearing on Letterman, Seinfeld is always human, always identifiable.  Of course, he does have that whole “most popular show ever” thing going for him, so I probably would have cut him some slack anyway.

Comedian is not just the Jerry show, however.  Periodically, we check in at the other end of the comedy spectrum.  Orny Adams is an up-and-coming young comedian, trying to hit it big.  Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?  Orny Adams is shallow, self-absorbed, self-deluded, not funny, and not smart.  He’s like Kenny Banya’s imaginary little brother, the one who does all that funny spring break comedy for the frat.  Orny Adams is also supremely confident, a trait common among idiots.  He got on my nerves like no one in recent memory.  For example, it’s one thing when he pantomimes talking on a cell phone by TAKING OFF HIS SHOE AND HOLDING IT TO HIS FACE.  It’s quite another when he feels the need to explain why it’s so genius.  Let’s put it this way:  Guys like Orny Adams are the reason MTV hardly plays videos anymore.  Isn’t there some cheesy, soon-to-be-cancelled and forgotten reality show this wad could host?

Eventually, Orny gets a meeting with Jerry’s manager (hence the connection), and is so amazingly over the top in love with his own persona that it’s obvious he thinks he’s already the biggest star in the world, and shame on that Jerry’s manager guy for not seeing it yet.  When he gets his picture in the paper, he becomes nearly insufferable.  When he gets a spot on Letterman, he becomes near-unwatchable.  It makes for excellent documentary footage though.  And makes Jerry look not only like the funnier man, but like a better guy all around, to boot.  Hm…wonder which one has his name above the title? 

As we spend more time with Seinfeld, we get the impression that he views his former sitcom as a perk amid his continuing stand-up career.  Orny Adams, on the other hand, views stand-up as a ticket to sitcoms, which will spring him to movies, and from there it’s, I dunno, King of Ornyland or whatever.  Smirnoff Ice for everyone.

Poor Orny Adams; he probably thinks Adaptation is about Donald Kaufman.  Worse yet, he probably thinks Comedian is about Orny Adams.

Adaptation:  A
Comedian:  B