【Metafiction Special】 Adaptation (USA, 2002, R13)

Rating: R13 – Restricted to persons 13 years and over; contains drug use, offensive language & sexual themes.

What happens when a story begins to write itself? Adaptation is one of the most daring examples of metafiction in modern cinema.

Directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, this film collapses the boundary between the writer and the written, turning the struggle of creating a screenplay into the screenplay itself.

The plot follows Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) as he wrestles with the impossible task of adapting Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief into a film. His anxieties, insecurities, and wild imagination spiral into a surreal narrative that includes not only Orlean and her book but also a fictional twin brother who hijacks the story.

At once absurd, darkly funny, and strangely moving, Adaptation is a hall-of-mirrors experience that forces us to question what is “real” in storytelling. It is a film about writing that becomes a story about itself, making it one of the defining works of cinematic metafiction.

Location: Ellen Melville Centre, 2 Freyberg Place, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1000
Date and Time: Thursday, October 2, 2025, at 6:30 PM
Fee: Free entry!

Note: We’re hosting the event on the second floor of the Ellen Melville Center. Please use the entrance on the right side of the building on the ground floor. Once you go up to the second floor, you’ll see our venue right there.