The Adjustment Bureau
Melbourne Central Hoyts, March 08, 2011
Movie #18 for 2011
I’m not sure if this has ever before happened in the history of… well, history. The last three films I saw at the cinema were Matt Damon films. THREE IN A ROW. True Grit, Inside Job and now The Adjustment Bureau. (And then there was Hereafter not that long ago as well, but I’d prefer not to talk about it in the same sentence as films like True Grit).
In The Adjustment Bureau, Damon plays David, a young politician on a meteoric rise that is sidetracked when he falls for Elise (EMILY BLUNT), a talented dancer. Problem is, though, that this is not part of The Plan, written by The Chairman and enforced by his trilby hat-wearing “case workers” (including Mad Men’s JOHN SLATTERY, The Hurt Locker’s ANTHONY MACKIE and TERENCE STAMP). These agents are not exactly sinister (until you get higher up the food chain), but they have some spectacular powers and an unwavering faith in both The Plan and The Chairman and so don’t like it when David changes things.
Can you spot the thinly veiled Judeo-Christian elements in that plot? I usually really enjoy sci-fi plots and films with big ideas, but the big ideas in this film - freewill, destiny, faith and God - are all a bit cloying for me. Rather like Hereafter, the writers are more interested in justifying a belief system than exploring it, which I would find more satisfying. The Adjustment Bureau has The ChairGod as a patient and benevolent parent and (over-)explains away many of the faults with this ideology, like war and genocide. It’s a wildly different picture to Phillip K. Dick’s short story on which the film is based.
Along with the none-too-subtle plot, some of the dialogue is terribly clunky, but the film looks good (helped along by John Slattery and the rest of the agents in tribly hats and an inventive use of New York City spaces). And Damon and Blunt are excellent leads - they have lovely chemistry that papers over a lot of the writing flaws, although sadly this does not include a coda that made me want to gag.
