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.
- Scene 127
Orlean’s imagined portrait tells Charlie to focus on what he cares about, and he turns his own life into the screenplay.
- Just before
- Scene 129
Orlean asks Laroche about orchids, but he says he has moved on to online pornography.
- Scene 130
Charlie writes Orlean into his screenplay and is stung by the book jacket’s reminder that she has a husband.
- Scene 131
Charlie wanders Los Angeles as a woman’s snicker confirms his self-consciousness.
- Scene 132
This scene
