Adaptation

The first line of my review of Adaptation necessarily establishes the fact that the review will be self-referential. Adaptation is basically about Charlie Kaufmann's struggle to write an adaptation of a book which ends up becoming the movie. Therefore, like Escher's famous drawing of hands drawing hands, the review of the review of this movie is intended to be the review of the movie itself. The unfortunate consequence is that for the rest of the review I appear to be revelling in my own brilliance. From this point on, the review is nothing but wandering and shoddy praise of Kaufmann's amazing writing through attempted imitation. Whereas Adapation is an exquisite mindfuck, not unlike an onion within an onion within an onion eating itself, my review is an unorganized and incoherent mish-mash of onion flavoring; more unintentional mockery than imitation.

After an ambiguous introduction, this piece meanders on to an attempt at humor by making a rather stupifying tangent about the nature of people and their interest in psychology. Instead of discussing how the movie brilliantly taps into the incessant chatter that constitutes a neurotic stream of consciousness, my review notes that the inside of a person's head is completely different from an idiot Psych 101 drop-out's "What Women Want" perception of how people think. For whatever the reason, these poor bastards think that reading minds would be a fascinating and intriguing ability to have. They have a delusional substitute teacher's hyper-romanticized concept of a classroom filled with well-behaved uniformed children. Maybe in some way, they imagine that they will be able to query these children in an orderly fashion on various subjects before having a good laugh and spending the rest of the day quietly coloring.

I wish. Irritating levels of neuroticism and paranoia make the inside of my own head fucking noisy. It's like an unruly elementary school classroom. "I want a donut", "Can we have recess?", "I have to go to the bathroom", "Timmy's trying to eat the rabbit", etc. etc. My own mind drives itself nuts; I can't imagine trying to be a substitute teacher without at the very least being armed with a cattle prod.

Kaufmann understands this. His writing perfectly and humorously depicts the process and internal monologue that accompanies a losing battle with writer's block, incessant awkwardness with love, and the poignant flailing of humans trying to find passion in this world. Adaptation is funny, tragic and all too familiar. My review focuses not on this, but on trite non-sequitors while failing in its endeavor to convey the understated novelty of Kaufmann's work. As if mesmerized by my own cleverness, I only briefly discuss the elements that make Adaptation so remarkable and entertaining. Kaufmann's fantastic writing receives only spotted and underdeveloped attention, there are random self-deprecating remarks instead of an explanation of the elaborate plot and finally, a discussion of the touching depth of the movie is entirely neglected in favor of a fruitless joke involving a cattle prod. Nicolas Cage's hilarious performance as both a gangly loser genius and a clueless optimist is also only mentioned in passing.

This review is not unlike a funny idea to a bunch of drunk and completely unfunny idiots. It should've been aborted and left as an idea and a slightly unpleasant memory rather than conceived as an actual shrivelled, deformed and largely retarded review. Such ridiculousness is only compounded by my smug sense of accomplishment. But, don't let this egotistical crap-fest of a review deter you from seeing the movie. It's fun for all shapes and sizes.