Adaptation. Page #4

Like the unattainable.

Like the Holy Grail.

It's a little obvious,

don't you think?

Okay, but here's the twist.

We find out that the killer

really suffers from

multiple personality disorder. Right?

See, he's actually really the cop

and the girl.

All of them are him.

Isn't that f***ed up?

The only idea more overused than

serial killers is multiple personality.

On top of that,

you explore the notion

that cop and criminal are

two aspects of the same person.

See every cop movie ever made

for other examples of this.

Mom called it

psychologically taut.

The other thing is, there's no way

to write this. Did you consider that?

I mean, how could you have somebody

held prisoner in a basement

and working in a police station

at the same time?

Trick photography.

Okay, that's not what I'm asking.

Listen closely.

What I'm asking is:

In the reality of this movie, where

there's only one character, right?

Okay?

How could you?

What exactly would?

I agree with Mom. Very taut.

Sybil meets, I don't know...

Dressed to Kill.

Cool. I really liked

Dressed to Kill.

Until the third act denouement.

That's not how it's pronounced.

Sorry. I...

Okay, sorry.

Hi.

Hey.

Some key lime pie for you today?

Okay, yeah. That sounds great.

I'll cut you an extra-large slice.

Preferred customer.

Thank you.

That's really sweet of you.

Well, I'm just a sweetie, ain't I?

Still reading about orchids, I hope?

Yes, I am.

This friend of mine

has this little, tiny pink one

that grows on a tree branch

just like that.

I can't remember...

It's called an epiphyte.

Right. Right!

Boy, you know your stuff.

No, not really.

I'm just learning.

Epiphytes grow on trees,

but they're not parasites.

They get their nourishment

from the air and the rain.

Well, I'm impressed.

That's great.

There are more than 30,000 kinds

of orchids in the world.

Wow, that's a lot, huh?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll be back with an extra-large slice

of key lime pie for my orchid expert.

But... So anyway,

I was also wondering...

I'm going up to Santa Barbara this

Saturday for an orchid show, and I...

Oh.

I'm sorry.

Well, um...

I apologize. I'm sorry.

So I'll just be right back with your pie.

There are more than 30,000

known orchid species.

One looks like a turtle.

One looks like a monkey.

One looks like an onion.

One looks like a schoolteacher.

One looks like a gymnast.

One looks like that girl

in high school with creamy skin.

One looks like a New York

intellectual

with whom you do the Sunday

Times crossword puzzle in bed.

One looks like a Midwestern

beauty queen.

One looks like Amelia.

One has eyes that dance.

One has eyes that contain

the sadness of the world.

So I got married,

and me and my beautiful new wife,

my now ex-wife, the b*tch,

opened up a nursery.

People started coming out

of the woodwork to ask me stuff

and admire my plants

and admire me.

I think people were spending time

with me because they were lonely.

Couldn't drag me away

And you know why I like plants?

Huh-uh.

Wild, wild horses

Because they're so mutable.

Adaptation's a profound process.

It means you

figure out how to thrive

in the world.

Yeah, but it's easier for plants.

I mean, they have no memory.

You know, they just move on to

whatever's next. But a person, now...

adapting's almost shameful.

I mean, it's like

running away.

No sweeping...

Keener!

Hey, man.

Please don't hit

on crew members, Donald.

What, the makeup girl?

She was hitting on me, bro. Heh, heh, heh.

Don't embarrass me.

I have to work with these people.

I won't. Anyway, listen,

I meant to ask you, I need

a cool way to kill people.

Don't worry. For my script.

I don't write that kind of stuff.

Come on, man, please?

You're the genius.

The killer's

a literature professor.

He cuts off little chunks from

his victim's bodies until they die.

He calls himself

"The Deconstructionist."

That's kind of good. I like that.

See, I was kidding, Donald.

Oh, okay. Sorry.

You got me. Heh, heh.

Do you mind

if I use it, though?

It's really good.

I tried to split the Cassie scene

from the beginning to the end.

I saw that. Why did you do that?

Because I wanted there to be more

tension. Then you pick it up later...

- But are you changing?

- Keeps more tension.

That way the audience

gets stuck early on.

- You like it?

- I really like it.

Oh, it's so funny to be seeing you

After so long, girl

The way you look...

Heh. You look hot tonight, baby.

Thanks, Donald.

That's swell of you to say.

Don't you think she's hot, bro?

I'm heading home, Donald.

Really? Come on.

Hey, it's Amelia.

Hey, Amelia!

Hey, Donald. Hey, Charlie.

Hey. Hi there.

- Amelia, we don't see you anymore.

- What happened to you?

It's good to see you.

Oh! This is my girlfriend, Caroline.

She's a makeup artist for the movies.

Hi.

This is David, my friend.

Hi.

Hey. Nice to meet you.

- Amelia's talked a lot about you.

- Hi, I'm Donald.

- Hey.

- Caroline.

Cool camera.

So how are you?

You know me, a mess.

Oh, Charlie,

it's really good to see you.

Is the work good?

It's a disaster.

I don't know what I'm doing.

But, anyway, it's my problem.

I don't want to bore you.

You have your stuff, right? I mean,

we both have our own separate stuff.

Anyway, I should go. I was

heading home to do some work.

You coming?

No, I'm gonna stay at Caroline's.

A little push, push

in the bush.

Donald, you're such a tard!

See you, Charlie.

To write about a flower,

to dramatize a flower,

I have to show the flower's arc.

And the flower's arc stretches back

to the beginning of life.

How did this flower get here?

What was its journey?

Therefore, I should infer

from analogy

that probably all the organic beings

which have ever lived on this earth

have descended

from some one primordial form

into which life was first breathed.

- It is a journey of evolution.

- Adaptation.

The journey we all take.

A journey that unites each and every one of us.

Darwin writes that we all come from

the very first single-cell organism.

Yet here I am.

And there's Laroche.

There's Orlean.

And there's the ghost orchid.

All trapped in our own bodies,

in moments in history. That's it.

That's what I need to do.

Tie all of history together.

Start right before

life begins on the planet.

All is...

lifeless.

And then, like, life begins, um,

with organisms.

Those single-cell ones.

Oh, and it's before sex, because,

like, everything was asexual.

From there we go to bigger things.

Jellyfish.

Then that fish that got legs

and crawled out on the land.

And then we see,

you know, like, dinosaurs.

Then they're around for a long time.

Then an asteroid comes and "phwar!"

The insects, the mammals,

the primates, monkeys.

The simple monkeys. Old-fashioned

monkeys giving way to the new ones.

Whatever. And then apes.

Whatever. And man.

Then we see the history of human

Hunting, war, love,

heartache, disease,

loneliness, technology.

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