“THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU”
Based upon the short story “Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick
Written for the Screen, Produced and Directed by George Nolfi
* 1/2 (one and a half stars)
Dear readers, I just knew there was a good reason that I did not see this film in the movie theaters during its brief run this Spring.
“The Adjustment Bureau,” Writer/Director George Nolfi’s adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story has a particularly strong concept sitting at its core but the execution of that concept is disastrously scattershot and logistically ridiculous. Which is quite a shame as this film begins and sets itself up to be the very type of conspiracy thriller/head spinner combined with an urgent romance that I tend to gravitate towards. The film is well cast from top to bottom, it is well paced, well filmed and still it was all for naught. Yet, to the film’s credit, it was not for a lack of trying…something I can greatly appreciate. “The Adjustment Bureau” is not a standard Hollywood exercise in laziness but despite any commitment to the material at hand, the end result was one that was just enormously unsuccessful for me.
Matt Damon gives another solid performance as David Norris, a young New York Congressman in the throes of a seemingly victorious campaign for the United States Senate, a race he unexpectedly loses. While rehearsing his concession speech in the men’s room, he is interrupted by the presence of wedding crasher Elise (Emily Blunt), who has been hiding from security in one of the bathroom stalls. The twosome strike up a flirtatious conversation filled with instantaneous and unpredictable honestly, which builds into an undeniable romantic connection. Yet, due to their respective personal circumstances, their union is forced apart moments later with the added disappointment of knowing they may never see each other again.
One month later, David, contemplating a return to the political stage, is beginning his first day in private sector employment. On this fateful morning, he purchases a coffee, boards his morning bus and is surprised to find Elise riding same bus. It is as if a day had not passed between them as their playful honesty and sexually charged flirtatiousness returns without missing a beat. Once Elise departs the bus, this time giving David her first name and number, David arrives at work to discover an unfamiliar group of suit wearing men examining an office full of incapacitated workers, including his own best friend Charlie (Michael Kelly). David is soon apprehended by these dapper gentleman, taken to what appears to be a warehouse and accosted by a man known only as Richardson (John Slattery—possibly wearing the same suit from the “Mad Men” set). Richardson explains to David that around the world, these suit wearing men are essentially “watchers” who control the lives of the human race and ensure that everyone sticks to their individual plans created by “The Chairman,” thus extinguishing any notions of free will.
David, by interacting with Elise upon the bus that morning and not spilling his coffee before boarding the bus, has essentially gone off of his life’s script. Not only must he be returned to that script as soon as possible, he is to never see Elise ever again as they were never meant to be together. David is also warned that if he ever tells anyone of what he has seen behind life’s curtain, even inadvertently, his mind will be irrevocably “reset,” his brain lobotomized.
Determined to follow his heart and exert his own free will in the face of fate staring him down, David continues his search for Elise, as he rides the same bus every day for three long years just hoping to catch a glimpse of her again. Which of course, he does, thus beginning the battle for true love and free will.
Now, this is more than enough of an intriguing premise and since it has originated from the mind of Philip K. Dick that should not be surprising at all. The conceit of “The Adjustment Bureau” pulled me in very quickly with its philosophical framework, which from time to time took me straight back to some of my college Philosophy courses during which we debated the concepts of fate vs. free will often and enthusiastically. The spiritual games set into play with this story appealed to me but without the proper gravity, those games would have meant nothing. That’s where the effectiveness of having Matt Damon and Emily Blunt at the helm comes in as they provided the film with crucial emotional gravity.
Matt Damon (complete with an appropriate young politician’s paunch) and Blunt are wonderful together as they create immediate chemistry that never for a moment feels forced, strained or manufactured by the all seeing, all knowing Hollywood suits. Their ease with each other made me feel very often that their dialogue was even perhaps ad-libbed, as they exuded a true romantic and sexual energy while also being so playful. I found myself remembering the excellent chemistry created between Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky” (2001), a personal favorite and another film grounded within the everyday mystiques of interpersonal romantic relationships and connections long before the story transforms itself and plunges into conceptually uncharted waters. Damon and Blunt’s connection indeed gives “The Adjustment Bureau” its beating heart and soul and frankly, the one contributing factor that made me want to sit through this feature all of the way to its conclusion.
But, the problems for me began with the presentation of the titular Adjustment Bureau members. These beings describe themselves as being the ones who gave humanity the capability to produce eras like the Renaissance and periods during which there were great evolutions in scientific knowledge and so on. They also describe themselves as being the ones who observed the human race slide into fascism and the threat of nuclear war once they stepped backwards and allowed humans to the fullness of their free will. With that level of knowledge and omnipresence at our disposal, then why are they so shockingly and surprisingly easy to distract and dissuade? How and why do they make mistakes for reasons as non-sensical as oversleeping? Why should the fact that they wear a hat or not change their overall effectiveness? Their repetitive gaffes just made the mystery of “The Adjustment Bureau” more than a little silly and the sillier they became, the effectiveness of the film as a whole dwindled dramatically.
The titular Adjustment Bureau team members are essentially nothing more than beleaguered, overworked, underpaid and remarkably understaffed men in fedora hats and well-tailored Brook Brothers suits. There is absolutely no menace to these characters. Nothing is ever foreboding. Nothing even feels remotely otherworldly about them and there’s no sense of doom. Whatever one could say about a film like 2009's “The Box” (which I reviewed last month), at least Writer/Director Richard Kelly created a universe where Frank Langella’s character and the minions that surrounded him possessed a true darkness that permeated the entire film, making the entire proceedings very unsettling. Yet for “The Adjustment Bureau,” these elegantly dressed men are less like omniscient watchers of the universe and more like a put upon middle management team of a hefty but ineffective corporation.
Beyond this silly team, the plotting of “The Adjustment Bureau” and the variety of rules for the team members felt as if the filmmakers were creating it from moment to moment and it all felt so arbitrary and utilized solely to keep the wheels of the plot spinning. Does the presence of water negatively affect the team or not? If they do not have enough members to watch everyone in the world, then why should Damon and Blunt assume that everyone who happens to be wearing a hat is a potential threat to their love and safety? And then, there were the questions that popped into my head with the non-mystical pieces of the story including this following tidbit: Why doesn’t Elise just tell David her last name when she has the chance?
There were just too many points where this film felt like that God awful John Cusack/Kate Beckinsale romantic comedy “Serendipity” (2001), where the entire plot hinged on the very things that only a screenwriter would think up and not anything that real people would or could potentially do. Yes, “The Adjustment Bureau” is an existential fantasy but it does attempt to ground itself into the real world and the real emotions that are contained within this wild storyline.
I did say at this review’s outset that “The Adjustment Bureau” was not a lazy exercise. But I’m not certain if the filmmakers firmly believed in the material given to them. I mean—if you are going to have a film that is a debate about the existence or non-existence of free will, then I think you should be able to take that concept to the wall and this film just did not go there. It tried, yes. But, it’s a film that is almost impossible to take remotely seriously. “The Adjustment Bureau” never builds any real tension and never arrives at any crescendo of paranoia. No, the film doesn’t have to become more serious than it already is or more ponderous than it needs to be. It can be wholly entertaining yet still, emotionally wrenching, especially when we do have this strong love story at the center of it all.
Before I put this review out into the world, I would like for you to please take a moment and think of how the televisions series “Lost” tackled this type of material. Yes, they had many more hours to devote to their concepts than this under two-hour motion picture but it is the weight that they gave to their concepts and characters that made the overall storyline sing loudly.
“The Adjustment Bureau” has one hell of a song to sing but unfortunately, it just hums a little tune very softly and more than a bit out of tune.
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