The paradox of the film is that "Charlie Kaufman's" only escape from this circuit of fiction and fact is the part of his personality that doesn't want to escape, that wants to deal with the beauty of plants. The plants have what Sartre calls a 'facticity,' a quality in and of themselves, which - as Sartre also said - is what differentiates the something-ness of objects from the nothingness of human personae.

Plants, though, are not static. They adapt, into infinite varieties. There are, of course, many layers of adaptation in the film. First, there is Charlie, who is having to adapt to his status having changed, on the basis of his fame, from non-entity to genius. Second, there is his futile attempt to adapt Susan Orlean's book into a screenplay (ironically, the film changes the book so much that the WGA no longer classifies Adaptation as an adaptation). Third, there is the social adaptation we as individuals must undergo to fit into society and to our social, as well as physical, environment. Fourth is our Darwinian adaptation as a species, through the process of evolution -- especially in a stunningly realized sequence that graphically answers Cage/Charlie's question "How did I get here?" in a way that, while seeming to provide a cosmic answer to Cage's existential question, actually reinforces the despairing feeling behind it.

Finally, the film itself adapts -- changes itself -- in order to come to a conclusion. The film that Charlie wanted to make, or felt capable of making, is unfinishable. Charlie himself recognizes that, and, in a fit of desperation, asks Donald to have a look at the screenplay. So, from the point when Donald takes up the script in the hotel room, Adaptation turns into Donald's film, including car chases, sexual intrigue, drugs and the twin's own gruesome death. By buying into every nostrum prescribed by script guru Robert McKee (beautifully played right down the line of seriousness by Brian Cox), Donald-rather than Charlie-finishes the movie with a blaze of drama that Charlie could never pull off.

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