NOTE: I am going to begin this review with a statement that does not really say what I mean to say about this movie. I urge you to read past it. It is important and is truer left in. Shall we begin.
How far up your own ass can you go? "Adaptation" seeks to answer that question by being the most up its own ass movie there is. "Adaptation" is so up its own ass that is not funny. That being said I think that it was amazing.
What we have here is a tour de force movie in every respect, every bit of it is excellent. Just to review its excellentness it has the following; amazing writing on Charlie Kaufman's part the story is brilliantly woven together in a way only he can really do (I guess), amazing performances Nicholas Cage does a great double person like nothing else, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper also great acting it won Cooper an Academy Award for a fine but not his best performance, and every bit of it radiates emotion from the screen. Not to mention it is beautiful to watch, even the ugly shots have an elegance and beauty to them.
Now lets get back to the ass this movie is in because that is were the problem is. The idea of a movie is to project onto us, the audience, make us feel and make us learn or see something that cannot be tapped into any other way than through cinema. Well this review is about that and how this movie fails there.
This movie is all about its self, it begins with and uses throughout "Being John Malkovich" as sort of a joke as to what else Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman have done and it is as good a movie as any to set the stage for Hollywood only that we haven't seen it* in this way it becomes a very inside joke. Thats just right off the bat. Now to continue the movie turns out to only be about its self. Well thats fine, you can have a movie about making movies there are plenty of them. But it is not just about the adaptation of the book its only about the people on the screen and none of it gets given to us, the audience.
It is okay to have a movie that focuses only on one or very few characters, take 2007's "There Will Be Blood" only about Daniel Plainview or "No Country for Old Men" only about three or four people. So then what makes these movies better than "Adaptation"? It is this, even though they focus on a few characters, they tell us about our selves or our world. "There Will be Blood" asks us 'Are our pursuits worth it or driven by something more than a disgusting want for us to be on top?' and that gets projected and asked through Daniel Plainview. And that is the point of, in particular a drama, but really of any story. Its why we invent them and want to see and hear stories and have been since the beginning of our history in some way.
But what does "Adaptation" have to ask us about our selves or the world or history? Its not a rhetorical question. I watched "Adaptation". And I try to answer that question for allot of movies. And when I watch "Adaptation" I don't have an answer. And for me that is a problem, a flaw in the movie.
So, is it great? Yes. Should you see it? Yes. Is it flawed at it very center? Yes, it misses what it needs to really make us feel something and that is a flaw. Maybe that rounds it off to being mediocre instead of great but it is still worth your while despite it. One could go back and forth on that point for a long time. The fact is "Adaptation" is not what it should be, what all movies and stories should be. Something that looks our complexities. Existential as parts may be, the movie is not.
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*I have seen "Being John Malkovich" and think that is an exceptional movie, well worth your while.