Adaptation - Under Review
Plenty of Cage-on-Cage action.
Adaptation (2002)
For all the talk about its post-modern approach, intelligent writing and faux credits, the most remarkable aspect of Spike Jonze’s drama remains’ Nicolas Cage’s turns as Charlie and Donald Kaufman.
Playing twins has long been considered one of the great tests for an actor. To accomplish the feat, performers tend to either overplay one character or insist on distinct hair and wardrobe. Cage will have none of this. The brothers he creates both sound and look alike, but we are never in any doubt which is which. It’s a further measure of Cage’s success that, when ‘on-set’ photos were issued of Donald and Charles, it took a minute or two to remember that such a feat was impossible.
Almost as astonishing as Cage’s tour-de-force is the fact that his performances don’t overshadow Adaptation. Of course, it helps matters that Cage’s co-stars are Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. The former plays Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, a plot-free study of renegade botanist John Larouche (Cooper).
