Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

A young girl swings while her loving parents kiss between pushes.

Scene 25 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 14 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 25

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 22
Orlean describes Margary’s murder and reflects that Laroche loved the peril as much as the flowers.
Scene 23
Laroche argues with Tony that Seminole rights and conservation law complicate the arrest.
Scene 24
Orlean drives through Florida’s unstable edge between expanding development and disappearing wilderness.
Scene 25
This scene

25EXT. SUBURBAN BACKYARD - DAY

SUBTITLE: AKRON, OHIO, THIRTY YEARS EARLIER

Lush color. A seven year old girl is gleeful as her parents push her on a swing. She watches from the air as her mother and father, deeply in love, kiss between pushes.