Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie watches an attractive rental-car clerk, then turns back to his map.

Scene 100 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 51 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 100

Unable to find a conventional story in The Orchid Thief, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman turns his own crisis into an increasingly self-referential adaptation.

Scenes 1–9
Charlie inhabits an isolated, self-condemning world while Orlean’s book supplies a distant model of obsession.
Scenes 10–88
Charlie wants to write honestly and make flowers matter, while also longing to be desired and understood.
Scene 89
Charlie commits to entering the Fakahatchee himself, making research a risky attempt to find the story.
Just before
Scene 97
A surveyor describes a pond crowded with alligators.
Scene 98
Orlean lies awake in a hotel as narration warns how dry grass can ignite in the swamp.
Scene 99
A botanist’s report about squirrels gives way to a car catching fire in a dry field.
Scene 100
This scene

100INT. MIAMI AIRPORT CAR RENTAL BOOTH - DAY

Kaufman watches the pretty clerk working on the computer. She looks up, he looks down, studies his road map.