I read that Nicolas Cage completely ignored his own acting instincts and played Charlie exactly as Spike Jonze told him to. Perhaps that's why I really liked him this time around. Or maybe Kaufman's script was just that great. I don't know. All I know is that the one definitely cancelled out the other. I loved Adaptation.
I loved it as an amateur, neurotic writer. I loved it as an enthused film fan. I loved it as someone who had loved Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I appreciated it for the ways it didn't work and the ways it really did. It was gratuitous and a cheat and ridiculous. And risky. And smart. And engaging. Incredibly pretentious, of course, looking down its nose at people who wouldn't 'get it'. But I did get it. So yay.
