I didn’t like it. I found it pretentious and condescending. I got the ‘joke’ but it wasn’t funny, and it was sketched far too broadly for my taste. I don’t like being beaten over the head with things. I also had trouble sitting still for much of Charlie’s self-loathing.
But then, I didn’t like Being John Malkovich, either, so go figure. Too unrelievedly depressing. I only gave * Adaptation* a try because I had heard such good things about it, and didn’t want to judge a screenwriter on only one film, but I think I will give all the Kaufmans a miss from now on.
I thought it was funny because it was heavy-handed, just like Donald always is/was/couldabeen–even funnier because I already knew Donald was nominated for the “best screenplay” Oscar.
It’s not exactly a new and exciting concept (see The Player) but Mrs. NCUN and I both enjoyed it a great deal.
I didn’t enjoy the whole movie; I wish I’d gotten up and left the theatre, but I was with someone else at the time. But yeah, I was particularly annoyed with the ending. I also didn’t care much for Being John Malkovich.
Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I missed that. I thought the ending was just pointless and stupid; it never occurred to me for a second that that was the whole point.
I thought it was brilliant. Two-thirds of the way through the movie, Kaufmann, via the loathed McKee, realizes he is completely full of sh*t. His brother, representing all the screenwriters Kaufmann hates and looks down on, saves him from his own pomposity. The ending isn’t really “intentionally bad,” so much as it’s his acknowledgement that purely intellectual movies are devoid of the spark that makes regular people want to go to the movies in the first place.
Basically, he admits that yammering on in a pretentious, “it can’t be art unless it’s dull,” vein is ultimately a disservice to the audience who has actually paid to see your work and that it’s not even good storytelling if you can’t make them care, as McKee tells him.
That’s it exactly. I kept waiting for him to say “just kidding!” and make the movie I actually cared about. If I wanted to see a movie that “made fun of Hollywood” I could go see ANY MOVIE CURRENTLY PLAYING, right? Why was Pulp Fiction such a big success? Because it was different. What did Hollywood do for the next 3 years? Try to make movies JUST LIKE Pulp Fiction. The fact that someone “noticed” this and had a comment on it does not make them witty – it just means they have a grasp of the obvious. The fact that they assume I haven’t noticed it is downright insulting.
I think saying “just kidding” would be sellng the audience short. And I think it would’ve killed the movie. They had to finish it the way they did; it was the honest ending.
I agree completely. Saying “just kidding” in some explicit way to the audience would have been an outright insult, and I think Kaufman knew it. He made the right choice.
I thought Adaptation was quirky and smart… a sort of meta-movie, but far more interesting than most movies of its type, because it works on more levels. Most of all, I admired its honesty.
It’s hard to find a film that honest these days, especially one produced in Hollywood. Then, when it goes made, people say it’s tiresome or condescending. Oh well… I liked it.
My sentiments exactly! My husband and I were HOWLING, but we were the only people in the theater laughing. I wasn’t quite sure what was happening until Orlean said “we have to kill him” and then it all fell into place. I was having a pretty good time before that, but right then, it became one of the funniest movies I’d ever seen, made even funnier because no one else was laughing. My husband thought I was going to choke when they first showed the alligators. I knew what was coming, and when it did, I couldn’t catch my breath. I’m sure some of the clueless around us thought we were heartless for laughing at a man being chomped by alligators. Then THAT thought made it even funnier!
Yeah, definitely one of the best movies of last year.
I was surprised to see some of the reactions to this movie after I saw it. Plenty have said that the ending was a prolonged joke making fun of trashy movies, and their reaction is either “that’s brilliant!” or they get angry because the movie’s so condescending.
I don’t think that a 30-minute riff on how silly most Hollywood movies are would be that clever; it’s been done before countless times, for one thing. And it goes on way too long for that to be its only purpose. It is funny; as Equipoise said, it’s just hilarious to see all those bizarre non-sequitur action movie scenes played out. And of course it’s meant to be ironic; it’s foreshadowed from the beginning of the movie that this is the movie he doesn’t want it to become.
But it isn’t just mocking everything, and it isn’t just being condescending. Those scenes at the end are the only ones in which the characters come to any sort of resolution. Orlean’s character envies the passion that Laroche has for his “serial obsessions,” and her overly-intellectual life is somewhat cold and passionless. That’s a theme that’s suggested in the book, but doesn’t really come across in the movie. Until she breaks down at the end. Kaufman’s character is so trapped inside his own head and his preconceived notions of high art and trash, that not only is he unable to finish the screenplay, but he’s unable to connect with anyone and know real passion. Until “Donald” explains everything to him at the end.
He’s not mocking McKee; he’s saying that the guy has a point. There’s no point in being able to come up with complex ideas about art if you can’t get the message across. There’s no such thing as a movie about nothing; there’s drama in everything. He can’t continue to think of himself and Donald as two different people, the one who makes intellectual films and the one who makes commercial films. He’s got to let go of his insecurity and pomposity and just make something.
And the really funny thing about the movie is that it’s actually ends up being a pretty good adaptation of the book.
Though I haven’t yet read the book yet (I plan to), I found this sort of interesting too. Susan Orlean seems to agree with what you say… quoting from here:
Inane bullshit. I never found anything remotely entertaining in these self-referencing and painfully hip movies that can’t help but give a big moronic wink at the audience while they’re unspooling.
That is cool. I read an interview where she said that she liked the fact that, it wasn’t just an adaptation, that her book was actually a character in the film. I thought “yeah, that’s it exactly!”
I’ll try to find a cite if anyone wants.
The funny thing is, is I felt he really got across what The Orchid Thief had to say with the first two thirds of the movie. Through sheer imagination, he drew out of a non-structured book what it was attempting to convey, or at least what he felt about it. I found the John Laroch and Susan Orleans characters to be fascinating, as I did with the flowers themselves.
I thought the joke at the end was funny, but too drawn out. I also think Kaufman probably spends days on end going around with his desire to be both Charlie and Donald - deep and thoughtful, yet successful and oft-bedded.
I liked Being John Malkovich. I liked Adaptation even more.
What a GREAT movie, and an even better meta-movie. When Meryl Streep says “We have to kill him,” I suddenly saw what was going on, and had to pause the DVD I was laughing so hard.
I agree with all the people who are right above, and disagree with the ones who are wrong.
Two other films that two two very different approaches to suggest similar themes about the relationships of audience to films are Verhoeven’s Hollow Man and Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. All three movies are meta-meditations on the responsibility a film has to its audience and vice versa; all three make use of bald cliches to discuss the language of film and what it communicates.
I have two thoughts about ‘Adaptation’ I’d like to get some feedback on…
1). Is it possible that the last 30 minutes of the movie is actually a brainstorming session between the two Kaufman brothers? (The real one and the fictitious one, I mean?) I noticed that when Donald is getting out of the car to go spy on Susan and LaRoche, Charlie gets out and says something like, “I think maybe I should go…since it IS my…you know…” I couldn’t help but think he was about to say “script,” which led me to believe that it is actually a brainstorm session.
2). I notice that while the ‘Happy Together’ song plays an important role in the plot, we never actually hear the chorus of this tune! Does anyone find any significance to this? I mean, the filmmakers paid for the rights to the song…why wouldn’t they want to use the entire thing?
