- Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE)
- Release Date: Dec 6, 2002
- Starring: Chris Cooper, Meryl Streep, Nicolas Cage
- Summary: The lives of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Cage), author Susan Orlean (Streep) and orchid poacher John Laroche (Cooper) become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others' in this adaptation of the best-selling "The Orchid Thief." (Columbia Pictures)
- Director: Spike Jonze
- Genre(s): Drama, Comedy, Crime
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 40
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Mixed: 2 out of 40
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Negative: 2 out of 40
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100Screenwriting this smart, inventive, passionate and rip-roaringly funny is a rare species. It's magic.
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100It's typical of the nerve, the bravado, the sheer giddy playfulness and sense of fun that characterize what has to be the boldest and most imaginative studio film of the year.
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91The notion of meta has never been diddled more mega than in this giddy Möbius strip of a movie, a contrivance so whizzy and clever that even when it tangles at the end, murked like swampy southwestern Florida itself, the stumble has quotation marks around it.
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88It's a testament to Cage's canny performance and Jonze's seamless use of special effects that you believe Charlie and Donald are two entirely different people.
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80The movie ends in a burst of violence that we are unprepared for and don't believe. Maybe it's the film's final joke. It's a miscalculation -- though a calculated one -- but it does not erase one's fond memories of all the odd, deeply humorous behavior that preceded it.
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75Snags on the fact that neither story depicted -- not Kaufman's and especially not Orlean's -- is enough to sustain more than an incidental interest.
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20Virtually everything that happens in Adaptation is almost juvenile showing off - daring to make a film that is in search of a script.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 59 out of 74
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Mixed: 3 out of 74
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Negative: 12 out of 74
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10
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BrandonS10Really makes you think--one of my favorite movies. Exceptional acting and story to go with it.
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NK10
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BlancoA.9
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â
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EvinC8
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SusieK.0
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Trailers
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