Z/Web

Assigned to write a screenplay of Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief, Kaufman discovers the book has no plot, just unusual characters, and the journey of those characters is mostly mental. How do you translate that to the screen? Even more important, since it’s such an important part of this book, how to you convey the writing style of the author to the screen? Kaufman’s answer is both brilliant and diabolical: he writes a film about writing the film!

But it gets even better. Not only is he a character in the movie, but he creates for himself a twin brother (the film credits both as the screenplay author). Then he includes the author herself in the film (a wonderful Meryl Streep). The result is a wild, bizare, painful, hilarious tale about the trials and tribulations of writing a screenplay, dealing with life, and oh yeah, the Orchid Thief book.

That last part is the kicker. As we watch the process of writing the screenplay, we learn all about the book, and we learn about it in a much more intimate, in-depth manner than we would if the book had just been filmed as a “normal” adaptation. In fact, much of the book is read to us in voice-over narration as the character reads the book on the screen! The book itself is about a strange man Orlean interviewed for a piece in the New Yorker (where she works). The man has no front teeth, is obsessed with orchids, and has a mysterious past. He tries to steal orchids from a state park (cleverly using Seminole Indians to do the dirty work, as they aren’t likely to be prosecuted, being an oppressed minority) and is arrested. Orlean’s article is so successful she expanded it into a book about orchids, obsession, and this strange man. What makes the book work is her writing style, the bizarre main character, and her interpretations and observations on life and obsession. What’s amazing is that all that comes through in the film. Even though the film is a film about the book, not a film of the book itself, it teaches us a great deal about the book. It’s a brilliant workaround for an impossible task. It’s definitely one of the best book-to-screen adapations of all time because it is it’s own unique thing, yet it is inspired by the book and captures some of the book’s magic, and yet it doesn’t replace the book. (Some literal translations, like the Harry Potter series of films, are so faithful they might make some people think they don’t need to read the books. The movies are fun but the books are better.) This is definitely one of the best films of the year and if Charlie Kaufman doesnŐt win the screenwriting Oscar, Hollywood should be embarrassed.