“Do I have an original thought in my head?” Charlie Kaufman’s dizzying screenplay concerns, among other things, orchids, neurosis, detachment and passion, “Happy Together,” banana-nut muffins, and a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman, who decides during a bout of intense writer’s block to write himself into his own script. Anchored by a go-for-broke comic performance from Nicolas Cage (as both Charlie and his goofball, fictional identical twin brother Donald) and visionary direction from the great Spike Jonze, Adaptation is one of the canonical on-screen depictions of the creative process, and one of the most imaginative American films of the new century.

Spike Jonze's new film Her is screening in the Main Slate at the 51st New York Film Festival.