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There’s an empty sort of spirituality that echoes throughout The Adjustment Bureau. It isn’t concrete and, as a result, it certainly isn’t all that confident in what it’s trying to say about angels and heaven and the sort, but it’s there. Briefly – like Alex Proyas’ Knowing before it. Of course, this is Hollywood and looks matter way too much, so that spirituality is clothed in tailor-made suits and some mighty fine and “special” felt hats. Based on a story by Philip K. Dick from 1954, The Adjustment Bureau wants to trade its conceptual wings for a set of wheels and have the kind of driven success that the ‘what if’ moments of Inception had, but it can’t escape its own metaphysical hollowness.
David Norris (Matt Damon) has the type of life some of us can only dream about. He’s a political success story…until he loses the senatorial race in his climb toward The White House. Elise (Emily Blunt) is a ballet dancer who is mysteriously hanging around a men’s room at the Waldorf (a moment to be explained later). Seems they weren’t supposed to meet. Ever. Over many years, they are, time and time again, “interrupted” by well-dressed men from AMC’s Mad Men. Even as Norris sees success and failure in politics, the nice men in suits, namely a guardian named Harry (Anthony Mackie), don’t see fit to allow the connection to occur between the ballet dancer and the politician.
Under the instruction of The Chairman, the hat-wearing people seem to control the big wheels of fortune for us common folk – those that do not wear magically transporting hats and fine-fitting suits – and protect us from knowing too much. Then there is Thompson (Terence Stamp), a high-level guardian who reveals the truth to Norris one day. Seems he and Harry’s boss, Richardson (John Slattery), is none too pleased about his tip off to Norris. As a result, Richardson warns Norris not to play too hard and too often with the “pick” of Destiny, but Norris can’t help himself or his attraction to Elise. Eventually, he does exactly what Spielberg’s Minority Report taught us: Everybody runs.
What works best about the movie are the two main actors in highly-charged scenes that absolutely drip with romance and their shared on-screen chemistry. If these two actors – Blunt and Damon – once shared (and I’m not saying they did) a steamy night together and wish to keep it a secret, well, I’d believe it based on these performances; everything pulls them together in some very interesting and intimate moments. It’s too bad the randomness of the script and the resulting weightless direction can’t match their talents.
While it is great to see Damon bounce his acting off a female (instead of fleeing alone again), The Adjustment Bureau is simply too reliant upon moments of head-slapping absurdities to be taken too seriously – which is exactly how it’s being played. Believe this is happening. Believe this is possible, the movie seems to scream in certain moments. Yet, nothing prepares us for the deus ex machina moments that crust the mechanics of the narrative before it has had a chance to be properly oiled.
The concept behind The Adjustment Bureau is cool enough to garner sustainable interest, but the sci-fi delivery is a tad too clumsy from first-time writer/director George Nolfi to ever be slick enough to actually stick its intended spiritual landing. Of course, none of Dick’s original storyline remains in the movie which might be another reason why this film can’t soar with purpose. Instead of the satirical “and now I know – get me outta here so I can go home and sleep” plotline, the source material has been disregarded in favor of a hokey script which positions man as evil, bubble gum theocracy, and slippery digital effects.
Everybody might run at some point in life, but even the shiniest Cadillac on the lot still needs a bit of gas in its tank to actually get anywhere. The Adjustment Bureau, sadly, has only enough to get its audience halfway there. For some, this will be enough. For others, the walk ahead of them is going to leave them wishing for their own transportational hat…if only to get them away from the movie.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexuality and a violent image..
