Charlie Kaufman (Cage), hot from the success of his screenplay Being John Malkovich, but still a depressive, wants to adapt a book about orchid theft into a screenplay without sex scenes, car chases, or moments of personal growth for any of the characters. His hyper-optimistic twin brother Donald (Cage again), who's living on Charlie's couch, would rather write a serial-killer script following the essential rules of screenwriting as set down by screenwriting guru Robert McKee. Adaptation, carrying the credit 'Screenplay by Charlie and Donald Kaufman, based on the book The Orchid Thief', is both the story told by the screenplay, and the story of how the screenplay was written. And if that doesn't confuse the hell out of you, nothing will.

Taking self-referentiality to ludicrous new heights, Adaptation defies easy encapsulation, which makes it exhilarating to watch, but damn near impossible to review. So I'll point out that the acting is brilliant all round (Yes, the real Nicholas Cage, the weird-arse one who did Raising Arizona and Vampire's Kiss, has come back to us), and the plot, the same combination of melancholic comedy as the same writer-director team's Being John Malkovich. All in all, it's a great piece of mind-expanding entertainment.