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Adaptation scene 129: INT. CAR - DAY · The Reading Room

Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean asks Laroche about orchids, but he says he has moved on to online pornography.

Scene 129 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Orlean
Laroche

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:08 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 129

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.
Scenes 106–126
The swamp is ordinary, Orlean’s research fails, and Charlie experiments with increasingly personal versions of the book.
Just before
Scene 126
Charlie tears down McKee’s commandments, while Donald asks about the Swamp Ape and pitches a song.
Scene 127
Charlie fantasizes about Orlean, who tells him to focus on what he cares about, and awakens with a new direction.
Scene 128
Charlie excitedly describes his revised opening while Donald pitches a more elaborate thriller chase.
Scene 129
This scene

129INT. CAR - DAY

Orlean drives through swampy landscape. She talks to us.

ORLEAN

I suppose what I'd been doing in Florida

was trying to understand how people found

order and contentment and a sense of

purpose in the universe by fixing their

sighs on one single desire. Now I was

also trying to understand how someone

could end such intense desire without a

trace.

Orlean stops at a payphone and dials. It rings for a while.

LAROCHE (PHONE VOICE)

(groggy)

Yeah what?

ORLEAN

Hello, John, it's Susan.

LAROCHE (PHONE VOICE)

Yeah hi.

ORLEAN

So, how's everything going?

LAROCHE (PHONE VOICE)

Great! I'm training myself on the

internet. It's fascinating. I'm doing

pornography. It's amazing how much these

suckers will pay for photographs of

chicks. And it doesn't matter if they're

fat or ugly or what.

ORLEAN

That sounds good.

LAROCHE (PHONE VOICE)

It's great is what it is.

ORLEAN

So I've been meeting a lot of orchid

people, going to shows, I thought you

might want to hear about it.

LAROCHE (PHONE VOICE)

Sorry. I am officially no longer

interested in orchids or the losers who

are still interested in them. The end.

Laroche hangs up. Orlean looks off into the flat distance.

ORLEAN

If you really loved something, wouldn't a

little of it always linger?

She turns to the camera.