Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie reads Orlean’s book during the flight as her narration describes the search for the Fakahatchee.

Scene 92 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 50 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 92

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 89
Charlie packs for Florida and frames the trip into the Fakahatchee as a writer’s leap into the unknown.
Scene 90
Donald pitches a song-in-pajamas scene while Charlie announces the danger he expects from the swamp.
Scene 91
On the plane, Orlean says a person must want something very badly.
Scene 92
This scene

92INT. AIRPLANE - NIGHT

Kaufman reads The Orchid Thief.

ORLEAN (V.O.)

... to go looking for it in the

Fakahatchee Strand.

He can't concentrate, closes the book and watches a stewardess tending to another passenger.