ADAPTATION. (2002) ** I absolutely admire the determination not to do a boy meets girl > they encounter problems > they overcome they and live happily ever after flick. I absolutely admire the desperation to get beyond the standard, any, paradigm. But it just feels so desperate and dark. This is not a crappy movie, there are great lines and moments in it. But a film is a film, and it's a whole film. You won't often see a better cast, but it's actors-not acting below their abilities, but more wasted in roles that don't allow them to play to their strengths. Switch Tilda Swinton with Meryl Streep, to start. I mean, this may all be news to someone: everything changes, in this life and everywhere else we know and quantify it, but…it's supposed to be uplifting I think, and it never comes back from the darkness, for me. It's far below the threshold set for itself (and that it had the firepower to reach), but for me the main effect is that it totally ruined The Turtles' "Happy Together," though I was never a big fan anyway, so I'm not really mad or anything.
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