In Adaptation Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother (played by Nicholas Cage) is writing a screenplay with an idiotic twist that makes no logical sense whatsoever. He follows the lectures of a successful hack screenwriter, becomes a hack himself, and is much more successful than the tortured, “authentic” Charlie Kaufman.

Identity is, in my mind, the film of the screenplay with the silly twist that Kaufman’s twin brother was writing. Some strangers are holed up in hotel. People disappear or are killed. All the characters are unreliable as are the rules of the world they find themselves in. Think Vanilla Sky or Abre los ojos, with the unreliability turned up several notches, and violating its own violations, and the violations coming in long protracted sections instead of brief flashes. None of the data fits together. The gaps are so large that undoubtedly something else is going on aside from what is presented onscreen. Viewers need only watch a half an hour to figure out the twist, since none of the pieces will fit together given the constraints and how egregiously they are violated. I don’t want to ruin the surprise. The problem is that all of it is so unbelieveable so early, that the surprise is rather self-evident. Besides, I’ve probably already ruined the movie for you, if you’ve seen Adaptation and know about the goofy screenplay. Hell, see Adaptation. It is a better movie that summarizes, critiques, lampoons, and then celebrates the idea central to Identity all in under 10 minutes.