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Movies like Adaptation.

Key Features:
Meta-narrative, Screenwriter, Writers block, Existential crisis, Identity, Adaptation, Creative process, Siblings, Non-linear narrative, Surrealism, Parody, Self-referential, Obsession, Nudity-moderate, Drugs-moderate
Tone:
humorous, cynical, witty, ironic
Target Audience:
Film buffs, Intellectual viewers, Writers, Fans of unconventional narratives
Emotional Arc:
Anxiety → Confusion → Acceptance

Adaptation.

2002-12-06
Adaptation. Poster - Find Similar Movies

Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.

Genres
Comedy, Crime, Drama
Cast
Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Jay Tavare, Litefoot, Roger Willie, Jim Beaver, Cara Seymour, Doug Jones
Crew
Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman
Rating
7.346(2651 votes)
Adaptation.Adaptation.
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A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.



American Fiction
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A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.



Young Adult
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Zoom
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A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.



The Double
6.5

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.



Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?



The TV Set
6

As a writer named Mike struggles to shepherd his semi-autobiographical sitcom into development, his vision is slowly eroded by a domineering network executive named Lenny who favors trashy reality programming. The irony, of course, is that every crass suggestion Lenny makes improves the show's response from test audiences and brings the show a step closer to getting on the air.



Broken Flowers
6.921

Introverted Don Johnston receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him. A freelance sleuth neighbor motivates Don to embark on a cross-country search for his past flames seeking answers.



Bliss
Bliss(2021)
5.498

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.



Running with Scissors

Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.



I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.



Anomalisa
Anomalisa(2015)
7.105

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.



The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, Nick Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan. Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones.



Based on a True Story

Delphine is the author of an autobiographical novel that has become a bestseller. Exhausted by the promotional tour, just when she feels out of place, paralyzed by the idea of having to start writing again, she meets Elle, a young, attractive, intelligent, intuitive woman who seems to understand her better than anyone.



Jeff, Who Lives at Home

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Hitchcock
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6.6

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Day for Night
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Carolina
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The Family Fang
5.8

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Matchstick Men
7.005

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.



Jonathan
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5.871

Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.



3 Women
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7.098

Two co-workers, one a vain woman and the other an awkward teenager, share an increasingly bizarre relationship after becoming roommates.



Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Three wealthy children's parents are killed in a fire. When they are sent to a distant relative, they find out that he is plotting to kill them and seize their fortune.



Pig
Pig(2021)
6.645

A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must visit Portland to find the mysterious person who stole his beloved foraging pig.



CQ
CQ(2001)
5.9

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.



Reprise
Reprise(2006)
7.115

Two competitive friends, fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, endure the pangs of love, depression and burgeoning careers.



Heartburn
Heartburn(1986)
6

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship heartburn, nothing will.



Delirious
Delirious(1991)
5.621

A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show.



Scissors
Scissors(1991)
4.975

A woman trying to recover from a sexual attack is locked in a posh apartment with a corpse of the very man she's been dreaming would murder her. She tries to hang on to reality when objects around her seem to come to life.



Punch-Drunk Love
7.1

A socially awkward and volatile small business owner meets the love of his life after being threatened by a gang of scammers.



The Art of the Steal
6.179

Crunch Calhoun, a third-rate motorcycle daredevil and part-time art thief, teams up with his snaky brother to steal one of the most valuable books in the world. But it's not just about the book for Crunch — he's keen to rewrite some chapters of his own past as well.



True Story
6.256

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.



Her
Her(2013)
7.8

In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.



Blue Jasmine
6.981

After experiencing a traumatic misfortune, Jasmine French, a wealthy woman from New York, moves to San Francisco to live with her foster sister Ginger and the firm purpose of getting a new life, but she will be haunted by anxiety and memories of the past.



Stranger Than Fiction
7.279

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.



The Darwin Awards
5.523

After botching the capture of a notorious serial killer, idiosyncratic detective Michael Burrows loses his job with the San Francisco Police. He becomes an investigator for an insurance company and joins forces with a cynical field agent to probe suspicious and unusual deaths.



The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles

Josephine and Iris, sisters with opposite personalities, have their relationship radically transformed while working on a book.



The Book of Solutions
5.956

Marc, a bipolar and paranoid filmmaker, cannot tolerate seeing his current project picked apart by his producers. The clips he’s been able to sneak a look at lead him to fear the worst. With his editor as an accomplice, he manages to spirit away the rushes to his aunt’s place in the Cévennes, to finish the film as he envisions it. Instead, its completion is constantly postponed, as he creates endless diversions and impasses, which alternate between the comic and the downright disturbing.



Southland Tales
5.2

Set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Boxer Santaros is an action star who's stricken with amnesia. His life intertwines with Krysta Now, an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and Ronald Taverner, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.



Extract
Extract(2009)
5.825

The owner of a factory that produces flavor extracts, Joel Reynold seems to have it all, but really doesn't. What's missing is sexual attention from his wife, Suzie. Joel hatches a convoluted plan to get Suzie to cheat on him, thereby clearing the way for Joel to have an affair with Cindy, an employee. But what Joel doesn't know is that Cindy is a sociopathic con artist, and a freak workplace accident clears the way for her to ruin Joel forever.



Self Reliance
5.927

When a man is offered a million dollars to play a game in which hunters try to kill him, he thinks he has found the perfect loophole: they can only attack when he’s alone. His only problem is that none of his friends or family believe the game is real. Forced to seek companionship in unexpected places, he navigates the bizarre challenge with humor, paranoia, and a surprising search for connection.



Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Cal Weaver is living the American dream. He has a good job, a beautiful house, great children and a beautiful wife, named Emily. Cal's seemingly perfect life unravels, however, when he learns that Emily has been unfaithful and wants a divorce. Over 40 and suddenly single, Cal is adrift in the fickle world of dating. Enter, Jacob Palmer, a self-styled player who takes Cal under his wing and teaches him how to be a hit with the ladies.



Dedication
6.332

A modern love story in which a misanthropic, emotionally complex author of a hit children's book is forced to team with a beautiful illustrator after his best friend and collaborator passes away. As Henry struggles with letting go of the ghosts of love and life, he discovers that sometimes you have to take a gamble at life to find love.



Sibling Rivalry
5.147

Marjorie Turner is suffocating in her marriage and day to day life. An extramarital affair with a stranger seems to be the answer until her paramour has a fatal heart attack, and turns out to be less of a stranger than she could have thought...



Vampire's Kiss
5.913

A publishing executive is visited and bitten by a vampire and starts exhibiting erratic behavior. He pushes his secretary to extremes as he tries to come to terms with his affliction.



Leaves of Grass
6

An Ivy League professor returns home, where his pot-growing twin brother has concocted a plan to take down a local drug lord.



Schizopolis
6.1

A man works for the unpleasant guru of a Scientology-like movement.



Knight of Cups
5.705

Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.



Mom and Dad
5.402

In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.



J.T. LeRoy
5.4

A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.



The Singing Detective
5.041

Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.



sex, lies, and videotape

Ann, a frustrated wife, enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her husband John has begun an affair with her sister. When John’s best friend Graham arrives, his penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann’s rocky marriage.



Scribe
Scribe(2016)
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Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.



Kafka
Kafka(1991)
6.4

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.



Contempt
Contempt(1963)
7.1

A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.



Listen Up Philip
5.843

Anger rages in Philip as he awaits the publication of his second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley, and his own indifference to promoting the novel. When Philip's idol Ike Zimmerman offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject: himself.



The Brothers Grimm
5.843

Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.



Adult Life Skills
6.2

Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30 and has just moved back to her rural home-town, and into a shed in her mother’s backyard. She spends her time working a menial job at a local boating center and hides in the depths of her imagination, making movies with her thumbs. Irritated by her childish behavior, Anna's mother insists that she move out of her shed and on with her life. When a troubled young boy starts hanging around, the two form an unlikely bond. Through their strange yet mutually beneficial friendship, Anna slowly begins to confront her perpetual state of arrested development.



Secret Window
6.566

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.



Movie 43
Movie 43(2013)
4.627

A series of interconnected short films are the backdrop for a maniac screenwriter who pitches insane storylines featuring some of Hollywood's biggest and brightest.



Nine
Nine(2009)
5.5

Arrogant, self-centered movie director Guido Contini finds himself struggling to find meaning, purpose, and a script for his latest film endeavor. With only a week left before shooting begins, he desperately searches for answers and inspiration from his wife, his mistress, his muse, and his mother.



Lolita
Lolita(1997)
7.1

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.



Chaplin
Chaplin(1992)
7.4

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.



Posthumous
5.9

After false reports of his demise put him and his work on the map, an artist decides to continue the charade by posing as his own brother. Soon, a reporter enters his life and has a profound effect on him.



No Filter
No Filter(2019)
6.062

Beatrice celebrates with her family the release of her book: she tells about the accident of her husband Frederic. He became blind and without filter - always so funny and seductive, he is totally unpredictable. But this book, hymn-to-life, will turn into a joyful fist because if Beatrice changed the names, each of his friends seeks to find his character. The book awakens secret jealousies, while the group of friends and family pitch.



Takeshis'
Takeshis'(2005)
6.089

Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.



Shortcomings
6

When his girlfriend leaves for New York City on a 3-month-long internship, a strongly opinionated Berkeley arthouse movie theater manager begins exploring life as a bachelor.



Bergman Island
6.3

An English-German filmmaking couple retreat to Fårö for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Ingmar Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.



The Game
The Game(1997)
7.567

In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.



I ♥ Huckabees
6.287

A husband-and-wife team play detective, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, the happy duo helps others solve their existential issues, the kind that keep you up at night, wondering what it all means.



Reptile
Reptile(2023)
6.662

Following the brutal murder of a young real estate agent, a hardened detective attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems, and by doing so dismantles the illusions in his own life.



The Rules of Attraction

The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.



The Crisis
6.9

Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.



Goodbye to Language

The idea is simple / A married woman and a single man meet / They love, they argue, fists fly / A dog strays between town and country / The seasons pass / The man and woman meet again / The dog finds itself between them / The other is in one, / the one is in the other / and they are three / The former husband shatters everything / A second film begins: / the same as the first, / and yet not / From the human race we pass to metaphor / This ends in barking / and a baby's cries / In the meantime, we will have seen people talking of the demise of the dollar, of truth in mathematics and of the death of a robin." - JLG



Feeling Minnesota
5.445

Sam Clayton's marriage to ex-stripper Freddie comes about when she's strong-armed into the match by Red, a club proprietor who once did her a favor. But Freddie falls in love with Jjaks, Sam's brother, and the pair tries to escape the situation together. It isn't long before both Sam and Red catch up with them, resulting in threats against the two of them -- although tension also starts to build between Sam and Red.



Providence
6.8

On the eve of his 78th birthday, the ailing, alcoholic writer Clive Langham spends a painful and sleepless night mentally composing and recomposing scenes for a novel in which characters based on his own family are shaped by his fantasies and memories, alongside his caustic commentary on their behaviour.



The Adderall Diaries
5.308

Writer and Adderall enthusiast Stephen Elliott reaches a low point when his estranged father resurfaces, claiming that Stephen has fabricated much of the dark childhood that that fuels his writing. Adrift in the precarious gray area of memory, Stephen is led by three sources of inspiration: a new romance, the best friend who shares his history, and a murder trial that reminds him more than a little of his own story. Based on the memoir of the same name.



Enemy
Enemy(2014)
6.854

A mild-mannered college professor discovers a look-alike actor and delves into the other man's private affairs.



Inherent Vice
6.537

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.



Birds of America
5.4

A regular guy struggles with a repressive home and professional life, as well as making amends for the trouble his free-spirited brother and sister cause about town.



Pola X
Pola X(1999)
5.4

A writer leaves his upper-class life and journeys with a woman claiming to be his sister, and her two friends.



Serious Moonlight
4.988

After her adulterous husband asks for a divorce, a high-powered attorney takes him captive, refusing to release him until he commits to working on their marriage together. When his impatient mistress shows up, not to mention an opportunistic gardener, things start to get seriously complicated.



Hope Springs
6.262

After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple attends an intense, week-long counseling session to work on their relationship.



Tales of Ordinary Madness

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.



Numb
Numb(2007)
5.857

Hudson Milbank is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly and strangely finds himself without any emotional feelings. He tries doctor after doctor and shrink after shrink, but nothing works. The Golf Channel, lesbian exercise classes and a dizzying variety of pills get him through the day, but don't quite solve his problem. His writing partner tries everything to get him back to normal, but it's not until Hudson meets Sara that he finds a real motivation to get better and to actually start feeling again. From the writer of Deuce Bigalow, comes NUMB, a romantic comedy following an unusual man looking for strange love.



Arthur Newman
5.6

A story of a man who fakes his own death and assumes a new identity in order to escape his life, who then moves in with a woman who is also trying to leave her past behind.



Charlie Bartlett
6.675

Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.



Blue Iguana
5.725

He's a low level criminal with no future and just out of prison. She's a low level lawyer never noticed by others, a lost soul without a life. Their anger and hostility makes them serious criminals. Love happens in the strangest of places.



Amos & Andrew
5.4

When Andrew Sterling, a successful black urbanite writer, buys a vacation home on a resort in New England the police mistake him for a burglar. After surrounding his home with armed men, Chief Tolliver realizes his mistake and to avoid the bad publicity offers a thief in his jail, Amos Odell a deal.



Greenberg
Greenberg(2010)
5.869

Roger Greenberg, a failed musician now making a living as a carpenter in New York, returns to Los Angeles to house-sit for his brother. He's stranded there—since he doesn't drive—until his brother's assistant, Florence, comes to his rescue. She's as much a lost soul as he is, and the pair form a significant connection—giving Roger a much-needed reason to be happy.



The Adjustment Bureau
6.768

A man glimpses the future Fate has planned for him – and chooses to fight for his own destiny. Battling the powerful Adjustment Bureau across, under and through the streets of New York, he risks his destined greatness to be with the only woman he's ever loved.



You Hurt My Feelings
6.378

A novelist's longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.



Being John Malkovich
7.411

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.



Wanderlust
5.5

Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.



A Streetcar Named Desire

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.



Melancholia
7.2

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.



Asthma
Asthma(2015)
5.905

A young musician takes a beautiful tattoo artist on a ride in a stolen classic car.



Nocturnal Animals
7.4

Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.



The Lobster
7.036

In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods.

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