Adaptation.
Streep plays Susan Orlean in this dramedy directed by Spike Jonze and written by Susan Orlean, Charlie Kaufman, and his fictitious twin Donald Kaufman. Initially meant to be a straightforward adaptation of The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, the movie is instead a surreal take on the difficulty Charlie Kaufman had in writing that adaptation. Co-starring Nicolas Cage and Chris Cooper.
I thought it was one of the best scripts I’d ever read in my life. They leap out at you, the ones that are really ambitious. That’s what I loved about it—its ambition and its inventiveness. It’s very densely written. It’s dense visually, but also in terms of its ideas and its emotions. It looked like a really interesting ride. It wasn’t like anything I’d been asked to do before. And it’s not like a straightforward story.
