Adaptation/Headscratchers


 * Okay, I get it that the movie is a dramatized version of Kaufman's own struggle with the script. But if we are to view the fictional events of the movie as their own objective reality? What the heck, Charlie? He indirectly caused the deaths of his brother and Laroche, got Susan arrested -- and presumably, her career ruined in this fictional world. Then what? He angsts about it for about two minutes and merrily proceeds to finish his script -- based on the very events he has just experienced, which in the movie-verse are real and tragic. What. The. Heck.
 * The one thing Charlie wanted to do was be faithful to the book, without lowering himself to relying on any of the Hollywood movie tropes. In the end, he does "lower" himself, and it doesn't bother him to have done so.
 * I had a little bit of a moment of Fridge Brilliance, which made me think the movie is not supposed to (solely) be viewed as its own subjective reality. Did you notice that both Charlie and Donald Kaufman were credited for the writing of the screenplay? They both represent entirely different schools in the writing of fiction; the one being realist/cynisist who doesn't care much about suspense and "solving" the problem as much as simply portraying it (crushingly) realistically (comparable, I would say, to Kafka in the literary world). The other being the entertainer, stylist and structuralist - he wants a fast paced plot, a problem and a solving of it. He Plays tropes straight, even though it damages the realism - they are understandable to the masses (compare Dan Brown, perhaps). Now this, as the troper above me rightly noted, is reflected in the movie - first we have the crushing, depressing realism, then suddenly the fast paced (albeit kind of unrealistic and 'cliché') plot with the love affair and the drugs. And of course it ends on a positive note, with Charlie having transgressed a positive development in an unlikely scenario; Charlie wrote the first half, Donald the second. This is ofcourse in itself a deconstruction of the Plot -- what should we expect from it? Entertainment, soul-searching or realism? Whoa, what a fantastic film.