Spike Jonze
Adaptation (Il Ladro Di Orchidee)

An experienced screenwriter with some good work behind him is in total creative crisis. Hundreds of blank sheets end up in the bin under the desk after just a few lines. The deadlines for submissions are tight, and the work can't even get started. The book to adapt is lacking in events. Almost nothing happens, and the characters don't develop much either... in short, the life of Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a failure; and to this is added the conflict with his twin brother Donald, jovial and carefree (Nicolas Cage - Duplicated!), also an aspiring screenwriter, who risks surpassing him quickly thanks to his far more direct approach to life's matters.

The screenplay of Charlie Kaufman starts from a worn-out premise (a writer in a blank page crisis) to evolve in a pyrotechnic and amused yet wise and controlled manner into an analytical operation of dismantling American popular cinema. 'Adaptation', the original title of the film, is actually a multiple reference to the narrative contexts of the film, which advance in parallel and interdependent manners but always perfectly controlled by Spike Jonze's clean direction, which keeps the narrative thread as linear as possible, without exceeding in unnecessary virtuosity.

In the first part, two parallel stories chase each other. On one side, Nicolas Cage alias Kaufman in an ideational crisis reads the book (note - the twin brother Donald does not exist in reality). During the reading, a game of rare elegance portrays the conception of the book itself. Journalist and writer Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) follows with interest the scientific activity of a grotesque character, John Laroche (Chris Cooper, a brilliant character actor - he is the psychotic military in American Beauty). However, in the cinematic reality, the book reaches an unresolved philosophical and evolutionary node, which is at the base of the screenwriter's lack of inspiration. The book reaches the press, but the author feels that something inside her hasn't changed as she would have liked, and the book suffers from this lack of adaptation, and the ending is still truly to be written.

From this node, the stories intertwine. The stories of the two twins intertwine with that of the scientist-adventurer 'orchid thief', with that of the writer Meryl Streep in a perfectly orchestrated mix.

In the second part of the film, the screenwriter seeks help from the "Screenwriting Master" Robert McKee (Brian Cox) for further creative insights. This character will add further narrative charge and complexity to the succession of events, increasing the number of dependent variables that compose the brilliant magma of this film, which aims to represent a culmination of all American popular genre cinema, as well as its structural summary.

In this film, the conception of a screenplay, which is the screenplay of the film itself on display, is disassembled and turned inside out like a glove several times with ease and entertainment. Part of the credit is certainly due to the performers, all of whom are excellent, with Nicolas Cage even shouldering the work of a dual-character with two characteristically opposite characters. Meryl Streep, as always, is a guarantee in any role. I'm sure they both gladly accepted the opportunity to participate in the making of such a definitive and brilliant film.