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Being Charlie Kaufman

by Matt Hourihan

Kudos to you, Donald Kaufman.

There have been dozens upon dozens of screenwriters who have found themselves nominated, over the years, for an Oscar for their screenplays. Of course, being nominated for such an award is a sign of real ability and talent. However, despite the fact that the Academy Awards haven’t taken place yet, Donald Kaufman has already set himself apart, not only from this year’s screenwriting nominees, but apart from any other screenwriter to be nominated for the award, ever.

This is because, apparently, from what I can tell, Donald Kaufman isn’t real.

Donald is credited with writing the fascinating, brilliant film Adaptation, along with his twin brother Charles (who wrote Human Nature and the excellent Being John Malkovich, which, like Adaptation, was directed by Spike Jonze). Nicholas Cage does an expert job of portraying the wormy, slightly neurotic Charlie and his boisterous twin brother Donald—in fact, after a time it is easily forgotten that you are watching the same man portray both Kaufman twins. More about the brothers Kaufman in a bit.

The film is about…well…it isn’t easy to sum up. Perhaps one of the taglines from Adaptation’s marketing campaign could come in handy here: “A movie about a man writing a movie about a book about a woman writing a book about a man.”

The story starts with Susan Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, which began as a piece for the New Yorker. Orlean (played convincingly by Meryl Streep) travels to Florida to interview a rebellious, raggedy, toothless botanist and orchid hunter named John Laroche (Chris Cooper received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for this role—and he nails it). Orlean becomes…intrigued with Laroche’s inner will, and the intensity and single-mindedness with which he pursues his work.

The movie isn’t only Orlean’s story, but Charlie Kaufman’s story as well, and the struggle of writing his adapted screenplay, trying to be faithful to Orlean’s text. He’s written the process of writing the screenplay into the screenplay. The story is told using jump cuts, flashing back to Orlean and Laroche’s experiences in the Florida Everglades in the mid-Nineties, and then flashing forward to show an embattled, depressed Charlie, as he is trying to crawl and fight his way through the adaptation of Orlean’s story, even as we are watching it unfold ourselves.

To make matters worse, Donald, who lives with Charlie, appears to be the complete antithesis to his twin. Charlie wants to create truly meaningful, original film art, whereas Donald wants to write a typical Hollywood serial killer flick. Charlie is agonized—at times hilariously so—by the blank pages sitting in front of him, as he suffers the worst kind of writer’s block, whereas Donald seems to be using a writing-by-numbers approach as he cranks out his own screenplay. Charlie is paralyzed by social anxiety, even on the set of Being John Malkovich, his own film, while Donald effortlessly befriends and flirts with members of the cast and crew. Eventually, Charlie becomes somewhat infatuated with Orlean even though he has never met her, Donald enters a successful upswing, and through it all unfolds the back-story of Orlean and Laroche in Florida.

I will stop here, even though I have barely scratched the surface of Adaptation. It is not simply about the things I have rattled off here. Each story unfolds as its own fully realized narrative, yet tied together in some ways that are interesting, and other ways that are downright ingenious.

One of the main achievements of this film is its ability to weave together fiction with fact. There are of course the main characters I’ve listed. Of these, Orlean, Charlie, and Laroche are real people. In addition, John Cusack, John Malkovich, and Spike Jonze appear as themselves. But the most confounding character in the film is Donald—he doesn’t appear to be real at all, despite the fact that he is listed as a co-writer in Adaptation’s credits.

The use of the Kaufman twins as antitheses to one another enables us to really crawl inside Charlie Kaufman’s mind, and understand the problems with which he struggles. The juxtaposition of Orlean and Laroche—one a stuffy, learned writer living in Manhattan, the other a ball-swinging roughneck with a big, honest heart—works in the same way. In the end, even though the arc of the film is completely unexpected and might leave you shaking your head for a few different reasons—not all of them bad—we’re simply watching Orlean and Charlie learn from their onscreen companions, taking important lessons, and it is pretty likely that, at least at times, the real Charlie and Orlean probably could have taken the same path as their move selves. We’re watching them adapt.

This film is not for everybody, especially if you like your movies ending neatly, or if you don’t particularly enjoy really engaging in a movie, chewing it over during and after the screening and really trying to sort out the truth from the fiction. And definitely do not see this film if you like a solid line between fiction and reality, because that line just isn’t there.
So, good luck to Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother Donald, who have done a remarkable job, even if, well, one of them isn’t real.

I think.

Matt Hourihan is a senior journalism major. Email him at Hourihan50@hotmail.com.