Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Young Laroche lists turtle species at dinner while his mother listens and encourages his obsession.

Scene 29 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Boy
Mother

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 17 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 29

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 26
Charlie hears two passing girls laugh and imagines they called him “Fatso.”
Scene 27
Charlie finds his twin Donald at home; Donald announces that he plans to become a screenwriter.
Scene 28
Charlie rejects McKee’s rules while Donald defends principles and points to his own seminar.
Scene 29
This scene

29INT. KITCHEN (1972) - EVENING

The young boy eats with his family. His father wears a backbrace, his sister is weak and anemic. Only his sweet mother pays attention as he chatters excitedly.

BOY

Turtles are of the order Testudine!

MOTHER

Really? Testudine?

BOY

Yeah. And they're found on every

continent! Except Antarptica!

MOTHER

Antarctica. Every continent, huh?

BOY

Uh-huh. The turtle shell has remained

unchanged for two hundred million years!

And there's all different kinds, Pelusio

gabonensis, Phyrnops rufipes, Chitra

indica, Dermochelys coriacea coriacea...