Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Laroche explains how disability payments and a new marriage helped him open his nursery.

Scene 70 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Laroche

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 40 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 70

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 67
Young Laroche spots a flower on a construction site and falls from the half-built house.
Scene 68
Laroche calls his broken back and pesticide poisoning strokes of luck because they led to money and a nursery.
Scene 69
A reader sees Laroche’s article about risking death for plants beside his photograph.
Scene 70
This scene

70INT. DINER - DAY

Laroche talks, mouth full of pie. Orlean takes notes.

LAROCHE

I consider the broken back -- in three

places, by the way. I have x-rays --

(fishes through bag)

-- a stroke of goddamn luck. I got

disability, married the sweetest woman in

the world. And me and my lovely new wife

-- my now ex-wife, the bitch -- got to

open our nursery.