Web MasterAdaptation
Directed by: Spike Jonze
Starring: Starring: Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper
Playing at: Tivoli
In sea of competing movies, Adaptation is fit to survive
by Matt Simonton
Mark my words: college theses will be written about Adaptation. This achievement from the writer/director team of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze abounds with the same creative energy as its predecessor, 1999’s quirky Being John Malkovich. But whereas that film presented bizarre situations with real-life actors, Adaptation raises the bar by making the hero of the film its own screenwriter, a move that will probably have film students talking for years.
Kaufman (a pudgy, balding Cage) agrees to adapt the actual book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (Streep), thinking that such a daring Hollywood move (retaining the book’s innocent subject matter, flowers) will win him universal respect. Unfortunately, it’s a project easier to discuss than execute, and he falls into a screenwriting slump that’s only aggravated by his pathetic love life and bumbling twin brother Donald (also Cage). Also presented are the earlier exploits of Orlean, a journalist for the New Yorker, and her subject, John Laroche (Cooper), a toothless but intelligent horticulturist on the lookout for the elusive “ghost orchid.” When Kaufman runs out of ideas for his script, he resorts to spying on Orlean for material and discovers the sordid, untold truth behind The Orchid Thief.
To be honest, that description actually reveals nothing about the true nature of the film. On the surface is the entertaining story of Charlie, Donald, Orlean, and Laroche, but there is also a world of behind-the-scenes metafictional genius taking place. To begin with, as with Dante’s Inferno, one must differentiate between the author and his fictionalized self-portrayal. While the real Kaufman remains hidden on the other side of the camera, Cage presents him as a self-conscious introvert who detests the baser inclinations of his agent Marty, who’s looking for a more conventional Hollywood script. Kaufman the character explains, “I don’t want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end.” However, what Kaufman the screenwriter ironically ends up doing with those clich‚s turns out to be immensely inventive. The credits attribute the script to “Charlie and Donald Kaufman,” and although the latter is Charlie’s own creation, the “Charlie parts” and “Donald parts” of the film are readily apparent.
Also important to note are the different layers of reality within the film. Nearly everything in Adaptation actually happened in real life, from Orlean’s interviews with Laroche to Kaufman’s frantic late-night typing. However, it’s what Kaufman the screenwriter does to mold reality into his own personal work that makes the film so original. In a moment of early morning revelation, Kaufman babbles into his tape recorder, “We’ll start from the beginning. We’ll show everything evolving – oceans, tiny one-celled creatures, then bigger fish, and then that fish that sprouted legs and crawled onto the sand, and then mammals, the apes, and then man, and all of humanity coming into existence.” What he has just described, of course, is the film’s opening sequence.
Kaufman, however, is not content to let such witty ideas alone carry the film. He also provides a hilarious script, full of great dialogue and comical irony. The inclusion of the fictional Donald is particularly ingenious, as the character, a sort of “dark side” of Charlie, supplies some of the film’s funniest moments. Donald is writing his own script for a stereotypical serial killer movie, and in his ignorance he is puzzled by Charlie’s writer’s block. Charlie explains, “No one’s ever done a movie about flowers before,” to which Donald responds, “What about Flowers for Algernon?” “Well, that’s not about flowers. And it’s not a movie,” Charlie sighs. Kaufman the screenwriter also takes us to the set of Being John Malkovich, where Donald manages to pick up one of the makeup artists. Later they play Boggle with Catherine Keener at Charlie’s house. Similar creative moments are just too numerous to list.
Adaptation is in many ways similar to Dave Eggers’ memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In both cases, the author manages to explore the writing process and bring his own skills under scrutiny, yet this “narcissistic, solipsistic” method, as Kaufman puts it, doesn’t sacrifice excellence for egoism. Rather, we are left with a stunning film that effortlessly blends thought-provoking style with humor and accessibility. Adaptation was a risky endeavor, but, as its title cleverly implies, proved an evolutionary step in film-making.
Bottom Line:
“On the surface is the entertaining story of Charlie, Donald, Orlean, and Laroche, but there is also a world of behind-the-scenes metafictional genius taking place.”
Grade: A
Darkness Falls
Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield
Playing at: Esquire
Darkness Falls into the category of good-time horror flick
by Bryan Keithley
Yes, the premise for Darkness Falls is paper-thin, but, luckily, director Jonathan Liebesman knows a little origami.
Chaney “you don’t know me” Kley and Emma “I’m on Buffy” Caulfield team up as twenty-somethings haunted by the tooth fairy in a film originally titled Don’t Peek. Yes, the tooth fairy. It seems that sometime in the 19th century an old biddy named Mathilda Dixon was erroneously burned as a witch for the murder of a child. Not too happy about this, Mathilda returns as a vengeful ring wraith – I mean, darkly-shrouded apparition – and decides to take it out on the children of the town, masquerading as a tooth fairy until that last baby tooth pops out, at which point she raises some PG-13 rated hell. Kyle Walsh (Kley) had a run-in with the demonic fairy and lived to tell about it, though he’s been through a few institutions and a few prescriptions since then.
Kyle returns to the town with a little more hair on his face and furrows in his brow, at the request of Cat (Caulfield), his childhood sweetheart, whose little brother is terrified of the dark and claims to see a ghoul when the lights go off. Mathilda, it seems, can only move about in the dark, light being her lethal nemesis. Is that a flashlight in your pocket, Kyle, or are you just happy to see me?
I’m being silly in the spirit of the film’s direction, for this “horror” movie will elicit more chuckles than knuckle-whitening thrills. And this is to the film’s ultimate credit. How frightening can a PG-13 Tooth Fairy really be, anyhow? Sure, there is the normal protocol of suspense building, false surprises, and interesting plays between illuminated open space and dark, claustrophobic hallways, but Darkness Falls’ real pleasure is the fun it has with these conventions. Indicative of this attitude is the self-reflexive subtleties in dialogue spoken by characters that almost know they’re just playing pretend. How else can you explain the hilarity of a moment at the “height” of the Tooth Fairy’s carnage, when Kyle utters, “All this for a fucking tooth”?
If this doesn’t tickle your funny bone (or tooth, as the case may be), how about this: in the hospital, the town’s last stronghold, Kyle, a doctor, and a nurse jump “pools of shadow” while descending a staircase to avoid the Fairy. On the first jump, the banshee-like Fairy swoops in and yanks the nurse screaming off into the night. With another pool to jump, Kyle asks the doctor if he’s ready, to which he simply retorts, “No.” The humor might wane when out of context like this, but suffice to say the audience was having as much fun laughing as they were being scared.
I wouldn’t say this for most movies, but Darkness Falls is definitely meant for a crowd, and is crucially dependent on the participation level of the audience. It hearkens back to an earlier era of moviegoing, back when people weren’t deathly silent, and weren’t afraid to yell “Don’t go through that door!” to the character onscreen. The film is not afraid to have a character boldly declare, “Don’t worry, we’re completely safe here,” and then ceremoniously send him off Tooth Fairy-style, as the spectator chuckles at the character’s folly. It is also unafraid of having Cat romantically linked to a man so obviously coded as a geek straight out of Revenge of the Nerds, such that the audience can laugh at his wretched dorkiness, and anticipate his inevitably dorky death. I applaud the director for giving us these moments amidst a more traditional horror aesthetic. It was the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a good while, if in part because of the rowdy, talkative crowd.
Bottom Line:
“This ‘horror’ movie will elicit more chuckles than knuckle-whitening thrills.”
Grade: B+