Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean dreams that the swamp traps and drags her under.

Scene 148 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:17 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 148

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.
Scenes 127–144
Charlie finds a way to focus the material by putting himself in it, then commits to meeting Orlean.
Just before
Scene 145
Orlean sleeps fitfully before the planned swamp trip.
Scene 146
Charlie reads advice to face reality and sees fireworks blooming like flowers below the plane.
Scene 147
Charlie sleeps uneasily before his meeting with Orlean.
Scene 148
This scene

148EXT. SWAMP - DAY

Orlean walks through alone, panicked. All the vegetation is greener and crazier-looking than we've seen before. Things slither by in the water, brush up against her.

She tenses, steps into a sinkhole, flails, gets tangled in a vine, which wraps around her leg as she attempts to extricate herself. She falls face forward into the black water.