While practising his U.S. Senate race concession speech in a men’s room, congressman David Norris (Matt Damon) encounters a woman named Elise (Emily Blunt) hiding from security in a stall.
Elise’s good humour makes an immediate and positive impression; inspired to be more honest by her dislike of his by-rote rehearsal, he blows his speech, going off message to come clean about his manufactured public image.
The Adjustment Bureau  Directed by George Nolfi. Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terence Stamp. |
But in one of those paradoxes of politicking, by publicly confessing that his “authentic” image is a highly conscious facade, Norris cements it as truth, setting himself up as a strong contender for the next go-round.
Elise, a contemporary dancer, does things only a comely leading lady in a movie can get away with, like flipping Norris the bird when they part, teasing him with backhanded compliments, and dropping his cell phone into his coffee to stop it from ringing. But there is genuine chemistry there – both from the characters’ perspectives and ours, watching Damon and Blunt play off one another naturally – and they seem headed for one of those fairytale romances.
But then, Norris walks in on his boss receiving Men In Black-style brainwashing in his office from mysterious, suited men.
“You’ve just seen behind a curtain you weren’t even supposed to know existed,” admits the agent Richardson (John Slattery), before telling Norris that he was never supposed to meet Elise more than once, that their individual destinies are prolific but separate, and that the Adjustment Bureau is tasked with keeping things on track according to the capital-P Plan, which they follow using magical books that might be misplaced Harry Potter props.
At this point, Norris resolves to fight fate for love and everything the film has carefully invested in authenticity – down to an election news cycle featuring CNN’s James Carville and Wolf Blitzer, NBC coverage, and Jon Stewart interviews – goes out the window.
Unexplainable abilities (telekinesis, magic hats) and arbitrary rules (water blocks the agents’ powers) are too preposterous for belief, and as the background fills in with nonsensical metaphysics and philosophy, one wonders why the filmmakers couldn’t have been comfortable with a little vagueness that at least would have allowed for a sense of mythology at work.
Instead, we get piecemeal pseudo-religious references as if heaven-as-bureaucracy were a fresh idea: when the turncoat Adjustment agent, benevolent Harry (Anthony Mackie), mentions the Plan’s author, “The Chairman,” his eyes dart involuntarily skyward. Asked if he is an angel, he replies, “We’re more like case officers.” One almost expects Nic Cage and Meg Ryan to pop out of the woodwork.
Worst of all, no degree of sharp-suitedness can imbue Richardson et al with the foreboding presence required of them – instead they feel like B-movie-budget X-Files antagonists channelling Reservoir Dogs.
The only agent to display any palpable authority at all is the enforcer Thompson (Terence Stamp), who shows up halfway through when lesser agents – partly through Harry’s sentimental interventions – can’t seem to keep Norris and Elise apart, tasked with delivering a lecture endorsing the Plan because human free will “gave us the Dark Ages for 500 years” and then world wars, the Cuban missile crisis, yada yada yada. (Wait, is this The Matrix? Humanity is a virus, right?)
The narrative suffers from a definite case of Yes Man syndrome: all you want is for the plot to go away and let the lovers be together – story arc be damned – because the most interesting moments are the nuances of their budding relationship, completely evacuated of all the sci-fi/conspiracy thriller accoutrements.
The climax consists of a map memorization session and subsequent chase in which the runners and pursuers are never even within sight of one another, giving the lengthy scene about as much tension as one might recall from an average episode of Lambchop’s Playalong.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel, it matters what’s in black and white,” intones Thompson during one of his lectures to Norris.
Director George Nolfi wants his film to be about star-crossed lovers, about human emotion transcending the cold logic of a bureaucratic machine, but for deus est machina, you might as well rent Terry Gilliam’s far-superior Brazil. If slick production values and a couple of A-list stars are enough, The Adjustment Bureau offers a passable romance.