In which many actors put in iconic performances (Chris Cooper, Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, and Nic Cage) and I squander a good situation.
Adaptation is good. It is overly introspective and meandering. The twin leads (played by Nicolas Cage) are fascinating in their differences, but especially the polarization of their ambitions. Charlie Kaufman (Charlie Kaufman the screenwriter of Adaptation loves his layers) longs to be a prestigious screenwriter and agonizes over every word; his new project is the adaptation of Susan Orlean’s (Meryl Streep) nonfiction The Orchid Thief (the titular thief is a rarely-better Chris Cooper). Donald Kaufman, the other twin (screenwriter Charlie Kaufman does not have such a twin, so we are compelled to think of Donald as an alter ego or wish fulfillment) wants to make serial killer movies where the twist is that the police officer is also the killer and thus chasing their self, and this low-hanging fruit allows him to breeze through the Hollywood system, finding deals and women and happiness without much effort. For anyone who has ever felt the acidic sting of avarice at someone who does the same skill seemingly without effort, Charlie and Donald’s relationship is pitch perfect and achingly real.
(To say nothing of the additional frustration that would come from one’s sibling being the successful person.)
The movie spins out of control, as Kaufman’s screenplays are wont to do, and we get drug-induced mania, violence, and one of my favorite moments in cinema, wherein Charlie’s brain goes on a tangent in an attempt to contextualize the orchids of the story and ends up in some Jodorowsky-esque place where he needs to start at the dawn of life on earth and work his way to the present to really get his message across.
2000 was the year that I started having anxiety. Prior to that, I tended toward mania and jumped headfirst into everything. (I auditioned for a high school musical with no preparation, a reedy dead frog of a singing voice, and no dance training. Just the thought of being on that stage today would drive me to madness.) However, I had no knowledge of mental health or how to address it until much later in life, and as a college freshman, it was impossible to separate anxiety from the ten thousand new experiences and stresses. 2001 was 2001, and I didn’t have time for anxiety in my life. 2002, the year of this essay, was the first time that I had a moment to breathe and thus had a moment to be in existential terror at the world.
What had changed was that I had delivered some subs to the regional newspaper and, on impulse, asked them if they were looking for writers. I had a high school friend who worked there, which surely helped. But the desk person was incredibly polite to a gawky oaf who likely reeked of cigarettes and fryer grease. I took a news awareness quiz a few days later, and submitted a writing sample of a movie review (I wish I could recall the movie or the review). And I ended up working there for about a year. I was a movie reviewer and sometimes music reviewer (I hated writing about music), and to fill in the gaps to give me a full-time workload, I had to write features and obituaries. (As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, interviewing people was my personal hell, so the features were the hardest for me.)
I was far too young to be doing the job that I was doing, but the managing editor liked me and I think that shielded me a little more than it should have, as I got a distinct vibe that my section editor hated me from day 1. Anyway, the job was fantastic and I got paid to watch movies.
Until I stopped going to see the movies. I’d leave the office to go to the theater and watch a couple of movies in a row on a Friday, but panic would grip me and I’d drive to my apartment instead and lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. Then I’d try to rally before the following Monday when I’d be back at work, so I’d try to squeeze in the movies either over the weekend or try to push the deadline for the review. Bad habits.
This issue also manifested in my schoolwork, as I’d get ready to go to class and then just not go, instead sitting panicked in my house. My first stint in college is a wasteland of Withdrawals, Incompletes, and barely passing grades. And through it all, I lacked the knowledge of the true problem being anxiety, lacked the words to describe the problem, and lacked the tools to address the problem. There were some bad days in 2002, which is as far as I’m going here. Anxiety is hard to talk about because it is very difficult to explain one’s consciousness to another person. What I see as blind terror may be interpreted as overreaction by a person who does not feel that kind of anxiety. Seeing a therapist regularly has been life-changing, to be frank.
I was eventually fired for being a bad employee, and it really shattered my confidence in my writing for a couple of years. I wrote a lot of music at the time, and had started on my crummy novel, but I think losing that newspaper job is what unmoored me for the rest of the decade.
Other 2002 candidates: 25th Hour; 8 Mile; About Schmidt; Bowling for Columbine; Death to Smoochy; Gangs of New York; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; Minority Report; Narc; Secretary; Signs; Sunshine State
I turn 40 in December. To commemorate the milestone, I’m writing 40 short biographical essays pertaining to a movie per year of my life.