Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Tony spots Laroche’s crew leaving the swamp and radios that he has caught poachers.

Scene 17 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Radio Voice
Tony

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 11 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 17

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.
Scene 10
Valerie and Margaret give Charlie the assignment to adapt The Orchid Thief.
Just before
Scene 14
Laroche’s crew saws orchid-bearing branches and stuffs the flowers into pillowcases.
Scene 15
Charlie asks Margaret to the orchid show and hides his disappointment when she invites her boyfriend.
Scene 16
Charlie watches a cashier and other women, then looks away when the cashier catches him staring.
Scene 17
This scene

17EXT. JANES SCENIC DRIVE - MORNING

Tony waits, sweaty and mosquito bitten. The radio crackles.

RADIO VOICE

How's that Injun round-up going, Tony?

TONY

Fuck you, Barry, you fuckin'...

Rustling near the parked cars. Tony tenses. Laroche steps from the swamp with the Indians, who haul the pillowcases.

TONY (cont'd)

We got poachers.

(into the radio, pleased)

We got fuckin' poachers, Barry. Ha!

Tony jumps into the truck and turns it around.