Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay is a wry commentary on the process of screenwriting and film adaptation. Hired to adapt ‘The Orchid Thief’, by Susan Orlean, Kaufman realised that the book was unfilmable, his solution was to write a movie about a screenwriter—’himself’—who unable to adapt The Orchid Thief ends up inserting himself into his own script. The highly original result is not only a postmodern fusion of reality and fiction, but a vicious attack on the conservatism of Hollywood screenwriters such as Robert McKee.