The Movie: Nicolas Cage plays Charlie Kaufman, a screenwriter struggling to adapt The Orchid Thief to film in Spike Jonze's Adaptation. In addition to dramatising Kaufman's writer's block and introducing his twin brother Donald (also played by Cage), the events of the book are also depicted, and as the narratives converge, questions of truth and motive begin to arise. What Makes It Original: A true metafilm if ever there was one, Adaptation takes the real world problems encountered by Charlie Kaufman and his struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief and explores it from every conceivable angle. Its multi-layered structure - even including a self-referential scene in which Kaufman visits the set of his previous collaboration with Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich - leads to a thorough deconstruction of the creative process shot through with originality. It's also a reminder of how good Cage can be when given the right material.
