Blogorium Review: The Adjustment Bureau

 It hasn't been the best movie year on record, gang: oh sure, there have been some bright spots (Bridesmaids, Super) with a few pretty good-but-not-great movies (Thor, Paul, Drive Angry) and a bunch of movies that looked promising and then weren't (Hobo with a Shotgun, The Mechanic). The Cap'n avoided loud clunkers like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Green Lantern, both of which seem to be not-that-well-regarded but still made plenty of money with their 3-D gimmickery. It's nice when you find a movie that had a reasonably large budget from a major studio that happens to actually be pretty damn good. It's even better when that film falls into the classification of Science Fiction, and if you're lucky enough to find one that's a Philip K. Dick adaptation that doesn't suck, you've hit the jackpot. Thankfully, George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau is well written, well acted, and almost not goofy. In fact, it's only goofy in one regard that I'm willing to overlook because it was so nice to see a film that takes its premise seriously.

 David Norris (Matt Damon) is a New York Congressman on the rise, and on the night his Senatorial run fails, he meets Elise (Emily Blunt), a dancer and generally free-spirit. Their chance encounter paves the way for another chance encounter on a bus several months later, which draws the attention of The Adjustment Bureau. You see, David was never supposed to see Elise again, and because Harry (Anthony Mackie), one of the members of the Bureau, failed to redirect Norris, the young political player is going off of his plan. The Bureau, under the leadership of the Chairman, has a plan for humanity and works behind the scenes to ensure that things stay according to plan. When David accidentally walks in on one of their "adjustments," Richardson (John Slattery) levels with Norris and lets him go on two conditions: he never tells anyone about the Bureau and he ceases to have any contact with Elise. When David ignores the second condition, Richardson is forced to turn over the case to Thompson (Terence Stamp), nicknamed "The Hammer" for his blunt approaches to disruptions.

 Typically, in a high concept movie like this, writers fall prey to one of two mistakes: they over-explain the machinations of the plot to the audience, or they feel the need for the "Everyman" protagonist to ridicule the concept of the film. Thankfully, Nolfi (who adapted the screenplay from Dick's short story "Adjustment Team") avoids both traps and treats the ambiguous nature of the Bureau with respect. Aside from a minor series of implications that link the Bureau to a religious understanding of fate (one of which is similar in nature to Wim Wender's Wings of Desire), Nolfi doesn't demean the mysterious nature of the group or undermine it by making jokes. While we never see the Chairman, there is a clear hierarchy within the Bureau and part of Richardson's failure to contain Norris comes from the fact that he doesn't have the answers that might stop the whole mess.

 Beyond the concept of the Bureau itself, the only other overtly "sci-fi" concept in the film (which could otherwise be classified as a thriller) is the agents' ability to use doorways to create shortcuts through New York (where the film takes place), and when the time comes for David to try this out, other than a brief explanation of how to do it (and that you need a Bureau member's hat), Nolfi (who wrote Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum) resists the urge to tell. Instead, he shows. The audience needs only to keep up to understand the film, which is refreshing. If, for some reason, you're worried that The Adjustment Bureau is another multi-layered maze like Inception, John and Jane Q. Public, fear not - the film is smart, but not too demanding of your precious brain cells.

 Sorry. That was rude. I want to convey that The Adjustment Bureau is neither overly complicated nor needlessly simplified. It exists somewhere in that space between, where both sides of the spectrum can avoid being insulted or confused. You will be entertained, and hopefully feel relieved that a film about a mysterious organization who controls the destiny of mankind doesn't need to have a kung-fu fight every twenty minutes. Since I can count on one hand the number of Philip K. Dick adaptations that take his work seriously and don't become, oh, Impostor, or Total Recall*, it was nice to see something with a "based on" that didn't make me sad. To be fair, I haven't read "Adjustment Team," so Nolfi may have actually screwed the pooch, and the Cap'n may have to reassess the film down the line. In the meantime, I rather enjoyed it.

 As a final note, while I don't have anything particularly noteworthy to add about Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, or John Slattery's performances (they're all fine and do the story justice), it was nice to see Terence Stamp actually be an imposing presence again. Not since The Limey has Stamp really carried much authority in his characters, and Thompson provides him a character with which to be both menacing but also subtle. He doesn't have to do much to demonstrate to David that he's a serious threat, and that was refreshing since I've only been able to think of him in The Haunted Mansion lately for some reason.

 Oh, by the way, what does the "Q" stand for, Mr. and Mrs. (or is is Ms.?) Public? Inquiring me's want to know.


 * Not that I don't like Total Recall, but the movie and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" are two very different things.