Ahhh… Originality. It never gets old.
This movie is about the process of writing the script to the movie you’re actually watching… it’s quite an astonishingly ingenious film that never failed to surprise me and never let my attention wane. Charlie Kaufman, the great screenwriter of the equally fresh and inventive 1999 comedy ‘Being John Malkovich’, is the real star here. He consistently presents intriguing scenes that beg to be thought about in great depth.
The cast is littered with phenomenal talents. Nic Cage delivers his best performance since the Oscar winning role in 1995′s ‘Leaving Las Vegas’. Meryl Streep is her usual solid self in a role one wouldn’t normally associate with her… the character is very quirky. Chris Cooper will assuredly be up for a lot of award show hardware this Spring as the toothless Orchid collector. And the supporting cast all performed admirably.
The one disappointment was the direction. Spike Jonze helmed Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Being John Malkovich’ and burst on to the scene as one of the best young directing talents in cinema. But this time around he seems a tad lost. Although each scene is beautifully written, they don’t really flow together with any cohesion or rhythm. Perhaps that is also the fault of the editing team… but I always blame the directors when a film feels disjointed.
However, there is always something interesting happening on screen and the film has enough going for it to be considered one of the most thought provoking and amusing of the year. ‘Adaptation’ is easily the most original movie to come down the pike in a long time.
