Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Based on a short story by sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick (whose stories have inspired “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall” among others), Matt Damon stars as a promising young New York pollie who loses his Senate bid after a minor past indiscretion (Too minor to be convincing if you ask me). He’s about to give his concession speech when he ducks into the bathroom. There he meets the beautiful Emily Blunt, a dancer who is apparently hiding, after having crashed a wedding. They quickly strike a bond, and when he gives his speech, he finds that this chance meeting has inspired him to be unusually raw and honest. They meet again sometime later, but every time they appear to be getting close to one another, something or someone appears to be working against their union. Then one day he walks into a room and sees something he was never meant to have seen, and it forces The Adjustment Bureau (suit and hat-wearing goons led by John Slattery but ruled by the enigmatic ‘Chairman’) to make themselves known to Damon, and tell him that he is not to see Blunt again. They even burn the phone number she gave him, and he’s never to tell anyone about the Bureau, either. He spends the next three years attempting to defy them and find Blunt once again. Just who are The Adjustment Bureau, and why is it so important to them that Damon and Blunt keep apart from one another? What? You think I’m actually going to tell you that in a plot synopsis? (Well, my review is best read after seeing the film, so I’m giving you fair warning). Anthony Mackie plays a Bureau member whose heart just doesn’t seem in it. Terence Stamp plays a mystery man who feels he needs to intervene at one point.

This 2011 George Nolfi film is the damndest thing. It’s a sci-fi film with just about all the sci-fi elements taken out. Even the poster for this film intrigues me, in that the picture presented seems like just the two lead characters running as in many other film posters in the action/adventure genre, but the way it’s designed is reminiscent of 50s pinko-era sci-fi films like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. The film will remind you of a lot of other films like “Inception”, “Dark City”, “The Manchurian Candidate”, “Mirage”, “Minority Report” (another film based on a Dick story) and even “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, yet in combining all of these influences, it ends up being its own entity. Yes, you’ll notice the similarities, and it’s a bit of a problem (though I think it’s a bit more entertaining, if a bit less clever, than “Inception”), but by the time it has all played out, you’ll feel as though you’ve seen something different or at least more than the sum of its influences.

At any rate, it’s a great ride, full of intrigue, and most importantly of all, charismatic stars and a central relationship you genuinely care about (A relationship that, by the way, isn’t in Dick’s short story at all). In some ways it reminded me of “The Time Traveller’s Wife”, only done much more convincingly, as the mixture of time-travel and more realistic romance didn’t work for me in that film at all. Emily Blunt is particularly perfect here. She’s not an easy actress to cast (I actually found her Oscar-nominated turn in “Young Victoria” an ill-fit for her), but this is a good role for her. You shouldn’t like Blunt. Her screen persona tends to be cynical, a bit bitchy and ‘unattainable’...but there’s the key. You want her, and you’re probably not sure why, you just know you can’t have her. I don’t know what to call that quality, and it may not even be likeable, but you (especially if you’re a heterosexual male) will find it hard to want to be in anyone else’s company but hers. She’s got star presence in this, and she works really well with Damon. She also looks absolutely stunning, it has to be said. The most amusing thing about her character is that by the end, she’s still gonna have a lot of questions to ask.

I didn’t much like Matt Damon’s low-key, mostly unemotional turn in “Contagion”, but he’s spot-on here. I honestly think he’s one of the best actors of his generation (not to mention he seems like a really down-to-earth guy in real-life), and he makes for an extremely appealing and likeable protagonist. Having said that, with all the convincing detail Nolfi brought to the set-up of the film, with famous faces like James Carville, Wolf Blitzer, John Stewart, and Jesse Jackson all relatively convincingly integrated into the story, not everything convinces. I personally would vote for Matt Damon (though I’m not American), but his political speech is unrealistic. He’d never say ‘bullshit’, for instance. It just wouldn’t happen. Still, that’s a minor issue. The scariest thing in the film? A politician named Norris. Be afraid, America. Be very, very afraid.

John Slattery also has a good role here, the kind of role you could see Christopher Walken, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, or the late J.T. Walsh in, but Slattery makes it his own. I actually think it’s his best work on screen, and the same applies to Anthony Mackie, in an intriguing role.

Writer-director Nolfi was the writer of the thoroughly transparent political thriller “The Sentinel”, and here in his directorial debut he erases any stench left from that extremely disappointing screenwriting effort. I really like how subtly we see that things are a bit odd, ever-so slightly sci-fi without really being sci-fi. There’s some fairly obvious religious symbolism going on, but it’s well-done. Some call it heavy-handed, but Terence Stamp’s extended cameo provides a chillingly convincing argument against free will, as human beings really are fuck-ups sometimes. His first shot on screen gives off sinister vibes, and so it makes you wonder that if this is indeed about God, what kind of God is The Chairman? You spend much of the film wondering whose side God/The Chairman is on. Is God/The Chairman a Democrat or Republican? He sure comes off like a Commie ‘Pinko’ to me at times, and at other times he/she comes off as being like Angela Lansbury in “The Manchurian Candidate”. It also brings up the question of whether fate is designed by The Chairman or is fate the coincidences and things that the Bureau don’t control? Not all of these questions (if any) get answered in the film, but I was less bothered by that than the familiarity of parts of the film.

I was also impressed by the interior set design of the film. The sets seem to be huge and tower over people, almost Orwellian in fact. This is a really interesting and entertaining film with two perfectly matched and charismatic stars. You can’t ask for much more than that, surely. Well, I do have to ask one thing: Why did Nolfi change the title of Dick’s 1954 short story The Adjustment Team? Seriously, they’re so similar, why even bother changing it? Odd. At any rate, here’s a sci-fi film that’s so low-tech that it might have just as much appeal to non-fans of the genre. Some might not even notice it’s a sci-fi film at all.

Rating: B