“I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases, you know... or characters, you know, learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end, you know. I mean…The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that. You know, it just isn't. And…I feel very strongly about this."

-      Charlie Kaufman

CRITIQUE

Here’s what I wrote about this film way back in December of 2002:

“Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage) has a problem. Well, he’s actually got more than one, but then who doesn’t? No, his main problem right now revolves around his chosen profession. He’s a screenwriter, see, and he’s been contracted to do an adaptation of Susan Orlean’s (Meryl Streep) nonlinear and nonfiction novel The Orchid Thief and it is literally driving him insane.

The story of John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a toothless Florida flower breeder, is the stuff of real people and real lives. “Why can’t there be a movie simply about flowers?” Charlie asks a smarmy studio executive (an excellent Tilda Swinton). Why can’t there indeed, Charlie.

Adaptation is the best film of the year. I can’t imagine another film coming down the pike this smart, inventive, exciting and audacious. But how to describe it? Better yet, how do you come up with it?

With writer’s block, that’s how. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman really didn’t have a clue as to how to adapt The Orchid Thief. His solution, he wrote himself into the story, and created a script all about the art of writing screenplays. And then, he turns that on its head, too, by bringing the real people involved with trying to bring the novel to the screen into it as well, but fictionalizing (sort of) how they all went about doing it.

Make sense? Not to me, either, but I adored it anyhow. The wacky team behind Being John Malkovich really comes out swinging this time. Director Spike Jonze hasn’t met a camera angle or a quirky perspective he hasn’t fallen in love with, and Kaufman might just be the most inventive screenwriter out there right now. I wasn’t all the enamored with their over-praised previous effort after it came out, but it really grew on me over time. Adaptation struck me as the best thing I’ve seen in ages right away. I can only imagine how much better it will look with a few years on its side.

Kudos must go all around. It is hard to believe Oscar can’t help but come calling on Cage, Streep and especially Cooper (who is long overdue for recognition). For Cage (in dual roles!), this is the most alive and intoxicating he’s been on film in ages. It’s nice to have the hyperactive charmer of Vampire’s Kiss, Face/Off and Moonstruck back at full tilt. Kaufman’s script brings out the best in him, so much so Sean Penn might have to take back his harsh diss from a couple of years ago or so.

I’m not going to try and explain too much about Adaptation. It would be impossible to do so as it is. Just go see it. Immediately. Today. There are far too few films that make one giddy and excited about the art of making movies. Adaptation is one of them, and it is for the ages.”

When I said I thought Adaptation would grow on me as the years past I guess I was being prescient as the movie ended up at #33 on my list of the Top 50 Films 2000-2009. Thinking about it as I write this review after watching the film again over the weekend, I’m starting to think I should have listed it much, much higher. Jonze and Kaufman’s creation is as inventive and as original a decade after the fact as it ever was back during its original award-winning theatrical release, and in all honesty I can only see its status as a modern classic getting stronger as more decades continue to roll on by.

THE VIDEO

Adaptation is presented on a single-layer 25GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with a 1.85:1/1080p transfer.

THE AUDIO

Adaptation comes to Blu-ray in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

The only extra is the extremely short featurette Behind the Scenes in the Swamp (2:03) and it’s perfectly acceptable, but nothing more than that.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Adaptation is a triumph and only continues to get better and better as each year goes by. Image Entertainment’s Blu-ray is a technical triumph, and while the lack of special features for a film of this caliber certainly annoys the low price point makes this a disc virtually impossible to resist.