Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Laroche tells Orlean how he and his mother kept searching past hopelessness until they found a ghost orchid.

Scene 151 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Laroche

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:18 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 151

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 148
Orlean dreams that the swamp traps and drags her under.
Scene 149
Orlean wakes from the dream as the imagined flood and alligator vanish from her hotel room.
Scene 150
Orlean picks up Laroche, who insists that cigarettes are all the supplies he needs.
Scene 151
This scene

151INT. CAR - A BIT LATER

The sun has come up strong. It looks hot. Laroche speeds along with one finger on the wheel, paying little attention to the road. The car veers onto the shoulder, he lazily corrects it. Orlean is tense.

LAROCHE

I remember one time when I was a kid,

fifteen or so, my mother and I came to

the Fakahatchee to look for a ghost to

photograph. We walked for hours, through

the most intense heat I'd ever felt. We

couldn't find one. I wanted to turn

back. But my mom said, no.

She said, John, if you keep searching for

something past doubt, past hopelessness,

past the absolute certainty that you'll

never find it, if you keep searching past

that, there it'll be. So we walked. I

had goddamn bloody blisters on my feet.

And we found ourselves in this charred

prairie, desolate, sun blasted, y'know.

And there in the middle of it was this

one gorgeous, snowy Polyrrhiza lindenii.

They drive in silence for a little while. She watches him.