Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean types about the variety of orchids and their strange forms.

Scene 53 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 33 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 53

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.
Scene 31
Donald’s rivalry and affection give Charlie a living counterpoint to his isolated view of himself.
Just before
Scene 50
Laroche recounts moving from turtles to fossils, mirrors, and other obsessions as each passion ends.
Scene 51
Charlie admits to his therapist that he is fixated on Alice and unsure whether she likes him.
Scene 52
Alice remembers Charlie and teases him about orchids, then withdraws when he invites her to the show.
Scene 53
This scene

53INT. NEW YORK APARTMENT - MORNING

Orlean sits at her desk and talks to us.

ORLEAN

There are more than thirty thousand known

orchid species. One species looks like a

German shepherd...