Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation
LABEL: PARALLELED STORIES
This is an exemplary example of two paralleled stories. And at the point of no return, one of the stories attempts to make connection withthe other story.
Page 0 Charlie is trying to figure out how to save himself from depressionand turn his life around. (THE GENERAL ASPIRATION OF THE PROTAGONIST)
Page 2 On the set of “Being John Malkovich” where nobody needs him as a screenwriter. Charlie is so depressed that he starts to ask the ultimate question: “Why am I here? How did I get here?”
Page 3 The montage of the whole evolution of millions of years until he is born out of the vagina.
Page 4 Nervous Charlie meets the beautiful producer. Charlie makes very clear that he doesn’t want to create an artificially plot-driven story. (BEGINNING OF A CHARACTER ARC, EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE SCREENWRITER)
Page 6 Susan starts to tell her story about the orchid thief, who is willing to break the law to get the precious flowers and he enjoys using his knowledge of case laws to defend himself against the state preserve policemen. (EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE FLOWER THIEF)
Page 10 Charlie comes back home and meets his twin brother Donald, who wants to be a screenwriter like Charlie, who admires a photo of a violin girl on a piece of newspaper under his pillow. (EMOTIONAL GOAL FOR THE SCREENWRITER)Charlie despises Donald for wanting to learn screenwriting from Robert McKee because he thinks that Robert is just trying to attract desperate people like those con religious leaders. (PHYSICAL OPPORTUNITY FOR BOTH CHARLIE AND DONALD WHO ARE WORKING ON THEIR SEPARATE SCRIPTS WITH DIFFERENT METHODS.)
Page 12 Charlie doesn’t know what to say to the girl that he likes. Awkward silence. (EMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITY FOR CHARLIE)
Page 14 Charlie tries to write, lack of concentration. On the contrast, Susan writes the history of the danger of orchid hunting productively. And Laroche’s arrest of stealing orchid from the state preserve fits into that history. Susan attends the trial of Laroche and tries to interview him for her article. (OPPORTUNITY FOR SUSAN WHEN HE MEETS LAROCHE)Charlie writes an opening about Laroche and he gives up.
Page 17 Charlie goes to a concert with the violin girl and he is so afraid that he doesn’t dare to come home with her. The girl is so frustrated that she doesn’t want to go out with him anymore. (NEW SITUATION WITH THE VIOLIN GIRL)
Page 19 Susan meets Laroche, who talks about his grand vision of saving the nature. (NEW SITUATION WITH THE FLOWER THIEF)
Page 20 Charlie belittles Donald’s effort of screenwriting and Donald teases Charlie’s failure of getting the violin girl.(NEW SITUATION WITH THE WRITING)
Page 21 Susan looks for Laroche at the nursery, where she meets a stoned Indian guy who can see her sadness. They go to a flower show, where not only Laroche shows off his knowledge about flowers, but also talks about the wisdom of finding your soul mate at all costs. (NEW SITUATION WITH THE FLOWER THIEF)
Page 25 Susan has lunch with a bunch of intellectual friends. She looks happy superficially, but when she is alone in the bathroom, she realizes that she is deeply unhappy. Susan talks about how she admires the feeling of caring about something so passionately. (CHANGE OF EMOTIONAL PLAN FOR SUSAN: SHE IS ACTUALLY NOT HAPPY AND STARTS TO BE ATTRACTED TO LAROCHE’S PASSIONAND IDEAOLOGY)
Page 27 Susan is surprised to know how Laroche can change his passion so easily. Susan also admires his courage to change.
Page 29 Charlie meets a waitress who expresses interest in the orchid book that he is reading. She accompanies him to the orchid show and shows him her breasts. But unfortunately, the dream is interrupted by Donald, who pitches him his story of a killer who suffers from multiple personality disorder. And as usual, Charlie dismisses the merit of the idea. (CHANGE OF EMOTIONAL PLAN FOR CHARLIE: HE IS DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION AND LOVE. THE WAITRESS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF HIS FRUSTRATION BOTH IN LOVE AND CAREER)
Page 33 When Charlie tries to ask the waitress out to the orchid show, she is really offended and changes her attitude of earning tips. Charlie has no choice but to go to the orchid show alone, where he observes women instead of orchids.
Page 35 Laroche talks about his past marriage and the concept of adaptation. Susan takes it personally and how hard it is for her to adapt. (SUSAN CONTINUES TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LACHECHE AND BE MORE UNHAPPY)Meanwhile, Charlie is not adapting well on the set, where nobody acknowledges him no matter how hard he tries. He is angry that Donald is mingling well with the crew and gives him a hard time. (CHARLIE CONTINUES TO FRUSTRATE OVER HIS INABILITY TO CONNECT WITH OTHERS.)
Page 38 Charlie is incapable of concentrating while Donald is having fun writing with his makeup girlfriend. Just as Charlie is leaving the party, they meet the violin girl with a fat boyfriend of hers, which devastates Charlie. (CHARLIE CONTINUES TO FRUSTRATE EMOTIONALLY)
Page 40 Charlie goes home and thinks his brain out about the flower story. He suddenly realizes that the idea of adaptation is the connection to all the stories. So he starts to mumbling into his tape recorder and he thinks that he is having a breakthrough until he listens to the recording again. Donald comes back home with excitement about the seminar of Robert McKee. But Charlie is so low that he can hardly respond. (CHARLIE CONTINUES TO FRUSTRATE PHYSICALLY ALTHOUGH HE HAS MADE THE BREAKTHROUGH OF FINDING THE THEME OF ADAPTATION)
Page 42 Susan calls Laroche again about what happened to his nursery. During a terrible auto accident, Laroche lost his front teeth and his marriage. He thinks that he killed his mom and uncle. And after that, hurricane comes and destroys the nursery. Susan is so sad to hear the story. (SUSAN CONTINUES TO BE BOTH SAD AND BE ATTRACTED TO THE IDEA OF THE FLOWER)
Page 46 The beautiful producer tells Susan that they would like to option her article so that they can turn it into a movie. But Charlie still doesn’t know how to adapt the story with his agent pushing him for a draft. Charlie fantasizes about his success of the script and having sex with the beautiful producer until wakes up in the middle of the night, not knowing what to do. Cracking crazily for a draft gives him nightmares. (CONTINUE FRUSTRATION FOR CHARLIE)
Page 48 Charlie goes to see his agent trying to get out of the gig. But his agent is not only unhelpful, but also tells him it is not an option because he has been working on it too long. Charlie comes back home and Donald continues to talk about his excitement about Robert McKee. (THE MAXIMUM OF HIS FRUSTRATION IS REACHED AS THE DEADLINE FOR HIS SCRIPT IS LOOMING)
Page 52 Susan calls Laroche to take her to see the ghost orchid. (PHYSICAL POINT OF NO RETURN FOR SUSAN)And Laroche is building a porn site. It’s 3:33 in the morning and yet, Charlie still can’t sleep. He reads the book again where Susan seems to have found the reason why people care passionately about only one thing: it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. Charlie is moved by the idea and he starts to fantasize having sex and talk with Susan, who seems to tell him that he should just focus on one thing only in the screenplay.
Page 55 Donald gets up with his girlfriend, who finds the chipper Charlie, who is even happier when he finds out that Donald’s story is never going to work. But he just couldn’t deal with their happiness. When Donald goes to pick up his lunch, he bumps into the beautiful producer but he is so scared to meet Susan. His low-esteem kicks in again but soon he realizes that he should write about himself. (INTELLECTUAL / EMOTIONAL POINT OF NO RETURN FOR CHARLIE)
Page 58 Just as Charlie is working productively with his new idea, it is interrupted by Donald who shows him his finished script, includes the idea of a snake that eats itself. When Charlie realizes that is exactly what he is doing, he rejects his new idea as insane and pathetic, so he decides to go to New York to meet Susan. (PHYSICAL POINT OF NO RETURN FOR CHARLIE CAUSED BY THE EMOTIONAL POINT OF NO RETURN)
Page 61 Susan goes to see the ghost orchid with Laroche and tells him that the story is going to be made into a movie. Susan admits that she loves hanging out with Laroche because he is passionate. But when Laroche is lost, he gets frustrated and when he sees the depressed Susan, he calls her a leech that just sucks him dry. Susan realizes that the ghost orchid is just a metaphor for those things in life that are easy to fall in love with but essentially out of reach. (RISE OF THE EMOTIONAL ANTAGONIST FOR SUSAN)
Page 64 Charlie comes to New York but when chance puts him with Susan in one elevator, he is still too timid to speak to her. His agent calls again to push him and also tells him how great Donald’s script is, which just sends him off the edge. (RISE OF THE EMOTIONAL ANTAGONIST FOR CHARLIE)
Page 66 Charlie is so desperate that he goes to Robert McKee’s seminar, where he constantly berates himself for being such a big failure. When Charlie asks McKee what to do with a story where nothing happens, McKee gets so angry that he yells at him. But Charlie seems to be waken up by his anger and gets a one on one session with McKee. Although at first McKee doesn’t know how to adapt the story either, he later tells Charlie to change his character in the last act, which he has to invent and is the key of a movie. (RISE OF THE EMOTIONAL ANTAGONIST FOR CHARLIE)
Page 72 Charlie calls to congratulate Donald on his script and invites him to New York to help him with the project. Donald comes and suggests that they should find something that is not on the page of the book. And in order to do that, they need to talk to the author. So Donald pretends to be Charlie to interview Susan, during which time, he makes Susan uncomfortable and realizes she has something to hide. (CHARLIE ENGAGING HIS ANTAGONIST)
Page 77 Donald decides to spy on Susan and finds out that she is going to Miami tomorrow. She is also acting weird with her insensitive husband. When they get back to the hotel, they find Susan’s nude pictures on Laroche’s porn website, which makes them determined to follow Susan to Miami the next day.
Page 80 Susan realizes that change is not an option for her. When she finally sees the ghost orchid, she is so depressed that she is not even a little bit excited. (FALSE GOAL REACHED WITHOUT SATISFACTION: EVERYTHING IS EMOTIONALLY LOST FOR SUSAN. THIS MOMENT IS ARTIFICIALLY DELAYED FOR THE POINT OF EVERYTHING IS LOST.)So Laroche wants to help her with drugs that extracted from the orchid, which all make sense now when she thinks about how fascinated the India was at the nursery. (FINAL PUSH)
Page 82 After hesitation, Susan snores the drug and soon she is as happy as a baby. When Laroche calls, they make a dial tone together. Then they have long talks about loneliness. Laroche has been waiting for someone to come along to understand him. And flash-forward: Susan and Laroche make love in their van, enjoying the nature bliss. They also spend high times at the nursery.
Page 87 The twin follows Susan and Laroche to their house. When Charlie goes to spy on them and their green house, he gets caught and Susan is freaked out that Charlie is following her. (EVERYTHING IS PHYSICALLY LOST FOR CHARLIE AS HIS EFFORT HAS FAILED AND HE IS GOING TO BE KILLED)So she makes a conscious choice of destroying Charlie just like Robert McKee said. Which spurs a huge conflict between the lovers. But they are going to do it anyway in the swamp. And Donald is hiding in the backseat of the car and helps them to get away.
Page 95 So the twin hide behind a tree truck, waiting to die. And Charlie suddenly realizes that he has been wasting his life, worried about how others will think of him. And he confesses his admiration for Donald, who just does what he wants without hoping pathetically that others will love him back. “You are what you love, not what loves you.” (FINAL EMOTIONAL PUSH)
Page 98 The next morning, when the twins are trying to get away, Donald is shot by accident, thrown out of the windshield and died although Charlie tries to sing to him. (Now Donald has become part of Charlie.) In the end, Charlie is cornered by the couple who are trying to kill him. Before they can, Laroche is killed by the crocodile in the swamp. Susan just wants to be a new baby and starts her life all over again. (FINAL PHYSICAL PUSH)
Page 106 Charlie calls his mom. From now on, Charlie is alone in the house. But his script is going well. He finally musters the courage to kiss the violin girl. Charlie knows how to finish the script and filled for the first time with hope.
Page 110 End of the movie. “So happy together.”
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