‘Adaptation’

Maimuna Camara

Eng101/103

Dr. McCormick

Spring I

In class we watched two different movies one was called ‘Adaptation’ and the other movie is called ‘Moon.’ ‘Adaptation’ caught my attention; this movie was directed by Spike Jonze and was written by Charlie Kaufman. This movie is based on a book called ‘The
Orchid Thief’ written by Susan Orleans. The name Orchid is the word from Latin. In the movie the characters play real life people, Meryl Streep acts as Susan Orleans, Nicolas Cage acts as Charlie Kaufman, and Chris Cooper acts as John Laroche. This movies shows how Charlie Kaufman has struggled turning the book into a movie.

In the movie each character is going through their phase of reality and imagination.  Charlie Kaufman is very insecure and depress about his self. Charlie does not like the way he looks calls himself fat and thinks something is wrong with him. Charlie is a writer and believes that writing is a journey to the unknown. He hates the fact that his twin brother Donald has moved in with him and is doing better than he is. Throughout the movie Charlie goes in and out of reality and imagination in his dreams. He was not the type to do so well when it came to females, he always was scared to even touch them. However in his dreams he seems to do pretty good and masturbates a lot. Even though it is happen in his dreams he feels it in real life, that’s when he comes back to reality and wakes up from these dreams. Donald on the other hand is very confident and has a great since of hummer. He does not have a problem when it comes to females, he even has a girlfriend.  

John Laroche is a planet collector that travels from different states to find several of different planets. Laroche believes that each planet is unique in its own way and the way they are shape. He said that the planet shapes form from different insect and how much they breed off the planet leaving their mark. This is why planets are shaped differently and can look like some insect such as bees. Laroche goes back and forth from the past to the present life. He tries to make sense of reality after he was in a car accident that killed his mother and father. His wife went into a coma and later left him. John blames himself for their death and wonders why it was not him instead. He looses his house and everything along with it. Laroche is left alone with no one and nothing. Then he discovers this planet called gosh Orchid and goes on a mission trying to find it. When he finally does find this planet he makes drugs from it. Laroche starts to develop feelings for Susan after she interviews him for her book.

Susan the book writer is unhappy and acts as if she is happy with her relationship with her husband. She becomes depress with their marriage and pretends every time she is around him or when he appears around her work place. Susan is stock with the life she has with her husband but things starts to change once she starts spending time with Laroche and interviewing him for her book. She becomes attach to him and his life style then slowly starts to fall in love with him. When she is around him she is a different person than when she is around her husband. She imaging how her life would be if she was with Laroche. Then she stops imaging and makes her thoughts into reality. She is now a part of Laroche life and starts having sexually affairs with him. She even starts to take drugs with Laroche and developed this whole new life with him. Throughout the movie Susan pretends that she is a good women and perfect worker, this is her reality of like. However when she is with Laroche she is in her imagination of life, where there is no rules and she can do as she please.

At the end of the movie Charlie and Donald discovers Susan second life with Laroche. Susan does not want nobody to find about her and Laroche and her sniffing drugs, not even her husband. So she decides that she has to kill Charlie, so her secret is safe. Instead of Charlie dying Laroche dies from being eating be alligator. And his twin brother Donald dies as well in a car crash. Susan is arrested and Charlie overcame his fears with women and finished the ended of his screen play.