Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie packs for Florida and frames the trip into the Fakahatchee as a writer’s leap into the unknown.

Scene 89 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Last scene of act one

Plot Point I
Save the Cat: Break into Two
Kaufman

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 49 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 89

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.
Scenes 10–88
Charlie wants to write honestly and make flowers matter, while also longing to be desired and understood.
Just before
Scene 86
Charlie describes the real case to a Hollywood party guest who keeps trying to turn it into a courtroom thriller.
Scene 87
Charlie claims to Valerie that his screenplay is progressing even as he calls himself a failure.
Scene 88
Orlean asks Laroche to take her into the swamp, but he says he is still banned.
Scene 89
This scene

89INT. EMPTY BEDROOM - MORNING

A hollow-eyed Kaufman is zipping up a suitcase.

KAUFMAN

(calling off-screen)

Travelling into the Fakahatchee, Donald,

is a perfect metaphor for writing. I'm

stepping into the confusion of the

unknown. I'm taking the big risk here.