“Adaptation” is such an original film that it’s almost a non-film. I’ve never seen a movie with a structure quite as bizarre as this. You need to really do a little bit of background reading about the making of the film in order to really understand it because otherwise, you might just miss the point of it.

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage “Face/Off”, “Leaving Las Vegas”) is the socially awkward screenwriter who had a big hit with “Being John Malkovich”. Now, he is tasked with adapting “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep “Manhattan”, “Doubt”). Kaufman soon discovers that the book is not really ripe for being turned into a film and so tries to invent unique ways to create his screenplay while his brother Donald (also played by Cage) effortlessly succeeds in life.

Charlie Kaufman is the person that actually wrote “Adaptation”. Never have I seen somebody from the film crew insert themselves into the story in such a way. In anything, he is the story. Nicolas Cage does a really good job. The two Kaufman brothers are radically different from one another and Cage is able to make it so that you always know which one is which. Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton (“Snowpiercer”), Chris Cooper (“American Beauty”), Brian Cox (“Manhunter”) and Judy Greer (“Jurassic World”) are all great too.

“Adaptation” is inventive and surreal. It’s not the most exciting or engaging picture and there are parts of it that did bore me a little but I was still ever so impressed by its design. Exactly how this movie got made is rather amazing because the real Kaufman did something so unconventional and got away with it. I’ve seen narratively creative films before such as “Memento” but “Adaptation” somehow manages to beat it in terms of creativity. Never could I have ever dreamed of a film like this.