The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau

Do you believe in Destiny?  Do you believe in Free Will?  Are these two concepts mutually exclusive?  Do you believe in True Love? What if True Love was not our Fate and our Destiny was on a different path? These are all questions posed by ‘The Adjustment Bureau’.

            The story follows the Senatorial candidate David Norris (Matt Damon) who, on the eve of losing his Senate bid, has a chance meeting with the beautiful and mysterious  Elise (Emily Blunt) in the men’s room  (don’t ask, it works).  The chemistry is instant and David finds himself falling for her immediately.  After a second random meeting on a bus, David begins to realize that mysterious fedora wearing men are following them and conspiring to keep them apart.   Soon David learns that these men live in a shadowy world amongst us and use their considerable power to adjust the paths of our Fate.  They are The Adjustment Bureau.  An organization dedicated to subtly correcting events when people stray from the ‘Plan’.  David is informed that Elise is not part of the ‘Plan’ and if he varies from the ‘Plan’ there will be catastrophic consequences. In the face of their seemingly omnipotent power, David must decide whether to accept his destiny and lead it on a path to greatness or risk everything (including his existence) and defy Fate to be with Elise.

            It’s hard to classify the genre of this movie. Some would call it sci-fi, others would point out its’ religious sub-texts, while still others call this a romance movie.   All would be right.  The movie mainly focuses on the romance part, with the agents of The Adjustment Bureau thrown in to add excitement and test our belief in True Love and Fate.  The Adjustment Bureau runs like a Corporation and feeds into every Big Brother paranoia out there.  They dress like business men from the 1950’s and if one knows what to look for, they are everywhere,  subtly guiding us along the path we were meant to take.   The movie takes great lengths not to define them more than that.  At one point David asks one if they are ‘Angels’.  The agent replies “We’re more like case workers”.  David pleads with them to understand the ‘Plan’, but the agents are not omnipotent like they seem and don’t know why David and Elise can’t be together anymore than David does.  They only follow the plans laid out by the ‘Chairman’.

            The trailers make this movie look like a dark foreboding conspiracy action movie, but as I have stated, this is more of a romance movie.  I saw many couples coming out of the movie where the women were stating their surprised appreciation of the movie to male partners who had unreadable expressions.   I think the men enjoyed it, but were expecting something more action oriented.

            The success of a movie with this premise revolves entirely around whether the two leads have believable chemistry.  Matt Damon and Emily Blunt succeed in this and their instant attraction and gelling is very engaging.  Emily Blunt is fast rising on my list of notable actresses.  Her beauty is sophisticated, yet attainably girl next door.  You become mesmerized by her eyes and smile right along with David and understand what motivates him to risk everything.  She is someone whose star is rising and deservedly so.  This is the third movie since I started my blog where I will give kudos to Matt Damon’s performance.  Perhaps I owe an apology to all my brother’s Boston friends who informed him they don’t understand my hang up about Matt Damon.  I will say he performed his job very competently and I’m sure he is a great guy.  My issue with him as a superstar is that, other than ‘The Talented ‘Mr. Ripley’, I never seem to see him transform himself into a character which is the mark of a great actor.  He always plays Matt Damon.  I don’t think he has earned the level of fame that he has (despite winning the Oscar for ‘Good Will Hunting’).  So take it as high praise that I extol his performance in this movie.

            The movie was interesting and posed many interesting questions, but given the premise, I feel they didn’t take a lot of chances.  It could have been a much greater movie if the director had the courage to tackle the issues raised (or should I blame the screen writers).  Instead, I feel they copped out and just let it devolve into an engaging, if not mundane, romance story.  I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but wished it were more.

I rate this movie ***