Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie highlights Orlean’s writing and stares at her author photograph.

Scene 114 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Kaufman

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 56 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 114

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.
Scenes 89–105
He leaves his familiar writing room and goes to Florida to search for the story firsthand.
Just before
Scene 111
Orlean writes that the ghost orchid resembles wonderful things that remain imagined and out of reach.
Scene 112
Charlie drives past familiar chain stores and stops outside a Florida California Pizza Kitchen.
Scene 113
A Florida waitress smiles at Charlie but looks through him.
Scene 114
This scene

114INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

A morose Kaufman sits on the bed reading The Orchid Thief.

KAUFMAN (V.O.)

What I didn't say to him was that life

seemed to be filled with things that were

just like the ghost orchid -- wonderful

to imagine and easy to fall in love with

but a little fantastic and fleeting and

out of reach.

Kaufman is deeply moved. He hi-lites the passage, then looks at the smiling photo of Orlean. He finds himself lost in it.