subject: All About the Adjustment Bureau MOVIE REVIEW [print this page] All About the Adjustment Bureau MOVIE REVIEW
What if you only thought you had free will? What if you had free will, but only for the most minor of decisions (ie. what toothpaste you choose)?
Such is the - irony intended -the fate of Congressman David Norris (Matt Damon). On the political fast track, one-time youngest congressman
Norris blows a big lead on his senate bid when an inappropriate photo of Norris at a college reunion emerges. As he is about to make his concession speech, practicing his speech in a men's room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, he meets a dancer, later to be revealed to be named Elise (Emily Blunt), who has crashed a wedding, and is hiding from security. Sparks fly between the two and they share a spontaneous kiss, before Norris is rushed to make his speech.
His encounter with Elise has so inspired him, he chucks the rehearsed speech and speaks spontaneously with a charm and honesty he hadn't been able to achieve previously. Norris goes back to his law firm, but he is haunted by the specter of the luminous Elise.
But as Norris contemplates his political future, he longs to find Elise. What he'll soon discover is that there are a group of fedora-hated, "Mad Men"-style suited men conspiring to keep Norris and Elise apart. Why?
"The Adjustment Bureau" is a taut thriller and while Damon has proved himself not only a capable, but agile action star (the Bourne franchise, for example), here his Norris is less of physical contender than a fit, bright and promising senator, willing to sacrifice his own ambitious dreams for the sake of true love.
The film is loosely based on a story by the late science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick (who wrote "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" which was subsequently turned into the now classic, "Blade Runner."
Time travel, dystopic universes and the general supernatural (in which an "alternate universe" exists) can create issues of consistency for the science-based, detailed viewer. But if a viewer can take a leap of faith (which, really, is necessary for any kind of film that features "magic"), this movie combines suspense and romance with a palpable dose of menace. While never mentioned by name, clearly the head of the Adjustment Bureau (which sets "to right" the way things "should be" according to the Bureau's boss' plan) is a deity and one that greatly resembles the Christian god: one character breaks it down, citing the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment as eras when the "bureau" was in charge of man's larger decisions, and world's later, darker, times as when humans were given total free will.
It is, then, also thought provoking. While Blunt's and Damon's performances are restrained, it's wholly appropriate for the characters they're playing.
Writer George Nolfi (Timeline, Ocean's Twelve, The Sentinel, The Bourne Ultimattum) directs his own screenplay (his first).
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