Does The Film “Adaptation” By Spike Jonze Have A Single, Coherent View Of Writing And The Process Of Adaptation?

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Although the film Adaptation was directed by Spike Jonze, the show is stolen by the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. The plot structure is chiefly unconventional, and classic Hollywood rules were violated. In spite of its confusing structure, the biggest transgression committed by Kaufman and Jonze is that they did not strive to remain coherent in their fictional universe, which was entirely created by them. The writing style in the movie keeps on changing itself, giving an optical illusion of an endless stairway or an incessant path. The book from which the film is adapted, The Orchid Thief, has a great reliance on facts and coherent thoughts, Kaufman suffered from a major writer's block while adapting the book into a screenplay. Although the writer was well-familiar with all major theories on screen-writing, the screenplay was brimming with the intersection of fiction and reality. On the surface, the movie seems to be quite uncomplicated and straightforward, and at any given point of the run-time, the audience knows what exactly is happening with the main characters, but the writing style is hardly coherent.

The story of a screenwriter who is trying to create something different is the main theme of the movie. There is a lack of external forces in the book, which is filled by an internal force; in this case, the screenwriter suffers from a writer's block. No concrete event is happening in his life, and this abysmal fact is reflected in the idea of the film which he wishes to write. The plot of the film is repeatedly questioned by the critics as it continuously strives to distort reality, turning the movie into something which was not the initial intention. The writing style renders adaptation into an arch plot, which is designed classically. Ideas and abstractions revealing inconsistent realities lurk around the plot but are causally interlinked, which helps the viewer to grasp the basic themes of the movie. Adaptation, from its very beginning to the end, is an arch plot, but the incoherence in the writing style confuses the audience.

Different events in the plot leap from one event to another in the pursuit to create a vague sense of ludicrousness. The conventional and traditional needs of the screenplay are influenced by the life events of the characters in the film, paving the way for unruly content. Adaptation is unquestionably conceptual and ideational and fully reflects the amalgamation of art and Hollywood. The inconsistent process of adaptation from the book to film presents a didactic presentation of the platitudinous process which the screenwriters undergo while writing a fiction film or a screenplay. The screenwriter also deceives about the actual writing process in the film and plays with the divine concept of truth by employing humor in the film. Regardless of the inconsistencies exhibited in the writing style, the film still manages to portray uniformity and is identified as a specific mental state of the screenwriter. This subjective state of mind of a single person holds the film contents unified and together for the audience and makes it unique from other fiction movies. By imparting the narratives of conflicting sides, the film convulses predictable and casts a spell on its audience through a portrayal of an illusion.

In a quintessential post-modernist fashion, adaptation deals with life as a subject and how an individual thinks about living it and how he lives it. Adaptation is indispensably a powerful movie that makes the viewer think about those passions which trigger our best achievements in life and other instances, leave the viewer stranded with lesser proclivities and desires in life.

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