A Twisting Narrative Stlye in Adaptation

Spike Jonez’s Adaptation begins very oddly.  We are witness to the thoughts of Charlie Kaufman.   This establishes a few private goals of Charlie stereotypical of many middle-aged men facing a mid-life crisis.  From here, the movie begins to jump around in both time and style.  The first half feels like the stream of consciousness more commonly found in literature. This first half can be viewed as a reflection of Charlie Kaufman attempting to write the screenplay for The Orchid Thief in a non-traditional way.  He doesn’t want to follow the guidelines that McKey later lays down. However, Charlie eventually realizes this method of writing the screenplay is futile and seeks the advice of McKey and his own brother Donald.  From this point in the movie, things fall into a more linear and classical Hollywood narrative style. There seems to be two ideas the real Charlie Kaufman is attempting to convey with this movie.  One is the inevitable futility of attempting a screenplay without following classical narrative style as can be seen in the switch to a classical style halfway through the movie once Charlie has completely given up on writing a new and original style of screenplay.  Another possibility is the real Charlie Kaufman is making fun of either Hollywood itself or our acceptance of the classical Hollywood narrative style. -Tim K.