Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Laroche jokes that he should play himself if Orlean’s book becomes a movie.

Scene 117 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Laroche
Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 58 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 117

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 114
Charlie highlights Orlean’s writing and stares at her author photograph.
Scene 115
Laroche tells Orlean she should have gone with him; Valerie praises the line in Orlean’s published article.
Scene 116
Valerie asks Orlean to adapt her article into a book and then to consider a film option.
Scene 117
This scene

117INT. VAN - DAY

Laroche, wearing a Cleveland Indians T-shirt, drives crazily thorugh the Hollywood Seminole reservation. Orlean holds on.

LAROCHE

No shit I'm a fun character.

(beat)

Who's gonna play me?

ORLEAN

I've got to write it first. Someone's

gotta write the screenplay. Most things

never get made. It's premature to --

LAROCHE

I think I should play me.

Laroche swerves into a parking space in the nursery lot.