Only just caught up with this interesting movie. made in 2002. Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper all received Oscar nominations for it, with Cooper eventually the only winner as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
7.9/10 IMDB: '...It is about a screenwriter (played by Nicolas Cage) who is trying to write something original, in a day and age when everything has been done so many times, even originality seems to have become clichéd. He has a further problem, which is that he can't get out of his own head. And he is neurotic. He is hired by a major motion picture studio to do something almost impossible: write an adaptation of a non-fiction book about orchids so that it can be a regular Hollywood film. It sounds like a stupid thing for a studio to hire a writer to do, but of course, that's exactly what the Studio did with this film. Adaptation is based on the work of New Yorker writer, Susan Orlean. She is played by Meryl Streep in the movie....'
* The characters draw you in and you want to know how the all-important 'last act' plays out. That, of course, is the trick of screenwriting, according to Brian Cox, who lectures as a screenwriting guru in the film.
John Laroche: Then one morning, I woke up and said, "Fuck fish." I renounce fish, I will never set foot in that ocean again. And there hasn't been a time where I have stuck so much as a toe back in that ocean.
Susan Orlean: But why?
John Laroche: Done with fish.
Susan Orlean: But why?
John Laroche: Done with fish.
