Films › Screenwriting
Adaptation.
Directed by Spike Jonze, 2002
Kaufman writes himself failing to write the film you are watching, then breaks the third act deliberately into the conventions he has spent two hours mocking. The self-reference is structural rather than decorative. Two versions of the same writer let the script argue with itself. It is the most useful film about writer's block ever made because it never resolves it comfortably. Nicolas Cage plays both twin brothers with almost no visual trickery beyond careful blocking and doubles work, forcing the performance itself to carry the split identity. Jonze directs the film's real and fictional registers with the same visual language, refusing to signal which mode the audience is in. This is essential study for any writer wrestling with how to dramatize the act of writing without becoming precious about it. Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper anchor the film's more conventional subplot with total sincerity, which keeps the metafictional half from collapsing into pure irony.
What to watch for
Watch the tonal shift in the final act and decide whether the film is endorsing or indicting it.
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