Nicolas Cage is Charlie Kaufman, 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 (also Nicolas Cage). While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean (Streep), Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean and John Laroche (Cooper), the orchid poacher and the subject of Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.