Adaptation 5 Star Movie
		Made: 2002 Cast:  Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Cara Seymour Director: Spike Jonze Screenwriter: Charlie Kaufman Cinematographer:  Lance Acord Producer: Johnathan Demme, Vincent Landay, Edward Saxon                   "You are what you love, not what loves you."
	Ever heard of a movie within a movie? Well Adaptation is the extreme version of that. This is a film about a screenwriter's attempts to make a movie about himself making the movie while he is making the movie. Sound fun? Well, if it does, than you are the kind of person who would like this film and hopefully see it's greatness. It is great in many ways, but perhaps the best of all is how it turns it's conventions on itself. The movie hints at it's own contradiction, but when it happens it is still a shock. The movie turns out to be so much more than a movie about the book The Orchid Thief and is oh so clever, though some would say too clever.      The lead character Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) says near the beggining of the movie that he does not want to turn Susan Orlean's (Meryl Streep) story about flowers into your "typical hollywood movie" that would cram in sex, violence, drugs and car chases; he just wants to make a movie about flowers. Charlie is very stubborn and set in his ways, and his twin brother Donald (also played by Cage) is his polar opposite; a loud, obnoxious screenwriter who writes his own story that is your typical 'slasher' movie (actually, the movie is almost exactly the plot of Identity, a movie that came out a year or so after this one, which is horrid). Donald looks up to Charlie, but Charlie despises Donald's taste and conventional attitude. Charlie is kind of a snob, but soon realizes there is more to some people than he gives them credit for, specifically Donald and Susan Orlean. Helping out Cage is Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, and Cara Seymour in roles that are played out perfectly. Chris Cooper plays the character of Orlean's book who is quirky and uses bad grammer, but underneath very wise. Seymour is Charlie's love interest and has a smaller role but is very sympathetic. The stories of Streep and Cooper are juxtaposed with Cage's attempts at writing their movie and it is oh so entertaining.         Spike Jonze is turning in his second great film as a director, which started with Being John Malkovich. In fact, since Kaufman and Jonze both worked on that film, they add some scenes in this movie from the set of the making of Being John Malkovich! For a director's first two films, these are some really great touches. He is part of a new wave of American directors including at the turn of the millennium that are changing the rules of the game including Sam Mendes, Paul Thomas Anderson, and M. Night Shamalyn. My only complaint would be there are too many scenes about masturbation (one or two would be funny, but this film has four or five), and sometimes the dialog is too graphic and off putting, the prime example being Charlie's manager played by Ron Livingston. This is made up for by many great quotes and scenes but perhaps the most moving is Chris Cooper's speech about pollination or Donald and Charlie's moment in the jungle. Personally, I think ANYONE could enjoy this movie, but it may take several viewings to understand it. This was the first movie in which I had the feeling that I "have just watched a masterpiece" upon leaving the theater in early 2003. Adaptation does not over do anything and defies all the modern movie conventions, mainly by listing the movie conventions in the movie itself.