Adaptation: A-

There is a book called The Orchid Thief. There is a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman. And there is an author named Susan Orlean who became obsessed with the obsession John Laroche has with orchids and writes a book about it. But none of these real people are in this movie. Instead, this is a movie about a man writing about a movie based on a book based on the obsession for someone else's passion. It is quite an exhilirating ride, if slightly tiresome.

Fresh off the sucess of "Being John Malkovich", Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) has been propositioned to write a story based on Susan Orlean's (Meryl Streep) best selling non-fiction novel about John Laroche (Chris Cooper). The problem? Writing a story about a book about obsession is impossible. Impossible on so many different levels that it almost drives Charlie insane; Charlie, the blustering and repressed nuerotic who is far to obsessed with what other's think to actually think about himself. Not to mention the fact that Charlie's twin brother, Donald (also played by Cage) has written an awful script and gained sucess and women.

Proving that "Being John Malkovich" was no fluke, the real Charlie Kaufman has created a meta-meta-observation on the nature of passion so ingenious and attractive that even as it writes itself into a movie on-screen, literally, we're hanging right along for the ride. That and the fact that director Spike Jonze, who also directed "Being John Malkovich", can make pieces of scenery into gimmicks that are equal parts beautiful and breath-taking. He does with a cast and set what Kaufman does with words. Eventually though the movie ties itself down into so many different places that it practically bursts apart at the seams, quite possibly filled with too much cerebral whimsy.

With performances that are light and delicate, "Adaptation" becomes exactly the kind of movie that is so rarely seen: a character study masquerading as a blockbuster comedy. A tragicomedy that is so obsessed with passion that we become obsessed too, even as we scratch our heads in confusion.