Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

At the orchid show, Charlie sees women rather than flowers as Orlean describes people’s consuming passion for orchids.

Scene 54 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 54

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 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
Orlean types about the variety of orchids and their strange forms.
Scene 54
This scene

54EXT. SANTA BARBARA ORCHID SHOW - DAY

Kaufman walks alone among the crowd of orchid enthusiasts, past a Santa Barbara Orchid Society sign. He tries to study the flowers. They are dull. He forces himself to look.

ORLEAN (V.O.)

... one looks like an onion, one looks

like an octopus. One looks...

Kaufman finds his attention drifting from orchids to women: all different shapes, colors, personalities, some in subtle clothing, some in garish clothing, all glowing.

ORLEAN (V.O.) (cont'd)

... like a school teacher, one looks like

a gymnast, one looks like a Midwestern

beauty queen, one looks like a New York

intellectual with whom you'd do the

Sunday Times crossword puzzle in bed.

One looks like that girl in high school

with creamy skin. One has eyes that

dance. One has eyes that contain the

sadness of the world.

He is sick with adoration for the women, who pay him no mind.

ORLEAN (V.O.) (cont'd)

Nothing in science can account for the

way some people feel about orchids.

Those love them, love them madly.

One by one the women turn to the men they're with: a whisper in the ear, a shared look, an arm slipped through an arm. Kaufman is alone in this sea of people and flowers.