ADAPTATION

Spike Jonze’s ADAPTATION. is one of the strangest studio-era American comedies of the 2000s, and one of the smartest films ever made about writing, self-hatred, artistic fraud, and the humiliations of trying to turn life into story. Written by Charlie Kaufman and starring Nicolas Cage in one of his best performances, it begins as a film about a screenwriter failing to adapt a book, then gradually collapses into a dizzying comedy about identity, insecurity, and the ridiculous machinery of Hollywood storytelling itself. 

What makes it work is that for all its conceptual brilliance, it is also genuinely funny. Cage plays anxiety so well that whole scenes become comic just from the force of his discomfort. The film keeps folding in on itself, but never loses its emotional pull. It's one of my all-time-favourite comedies and I really hope you'll join us here at FOMO to see Kaufamn, Jonze and Cage in this holy trifecta of comedic brilliance.