Review of The Adjustment Bureau (2011) by Marshall L — 21 Oct 2012

This movie is about a politician who falls for a ballet dancer called Elise whom he accidentally meets during his campaign for a senator. Their life and destiny is apparently controlled by a group called the Adjustment Bureau. Co-incidence, our old friend, is there however to help the lovers out...

The story is very interesting, although I did find the idea of a bureau of men controlling human destiny a bit simplistic, but it did not matter so much because the actors were great and the storytelling was so fascinating. Although here I must make a slight adjustment (no pun intended) to my statement: Anthony Mackie's character states in the film that they only appear to be human beings, but are, in fact, not. Unfortunately no clarification to the mystery of the bureau or it's even more mysterious Director is shed during the movie. Of course, in the end it is very easy to understand: the structure they would have to clarify to the viewer would be so vast, and they would have to touch on so many religious and ideological issues that it would become dangerous or detrimental to the success of the movie when balanced against those views held by thousands of different movie-goers. Yet this does thin the plot a bit, and with considerably more pondering and brain work this story could have been made even more enthralling by adding an element, twist or layer of extra mystery.

The most interesting part of this story is in my opinion the very real idea of the ripples, the effects everyone has on everything and the idea of personal responsibility on the futures of oneself and those of others. You might also want to choose some other perspective, such as the power of love as a power not to be underestimated even in front of impossible odds. Or the apparent paradox of the idea of dreams of men not yet manifested and simultaneously taking shape according to a deliberate form or plan - or a precreated form. One might want to ponder on of Plato's Theory of Forms or here, or cosmologist Stephen Hawking's question 'Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become masters of time itself?'.

The film is not slow-paced at all, and has enough action to keep it going. There's not too much philosophy either, which is sort of shame, really, because this movie could have withstood a bit more. Of course, one might then wish to ask would the movie-goers have withstood it..? In any case, the film has a chase or two also. I felt the film is relatively unburdened by its philosophical childbirth of paradoxes, although it did border slightly on the cliched, such as why are the bureau all male with stetsons? Is this some sort of Men In Black -reference? Also direct references to God and Angels are made, but nothing of the sort is confirmed. Although not intellectual cowardice, I felt it was completely unnecessary to instill religious imagery into this: mystery would have been preferrable here rather than flattening.

All the acting is great. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt especially cast riveting and sympathetic performances on the screen. Although some scenes are reminiscent of Inception and the Matrix, this is done stylishly and may thus be accepted here easily by artistic ethics. Music, action, storytelling and the spellbinding -although unfortunately short- contemporary ballet dancing sequences add to the effect of this wonderful and ultimately cool motion picture. After going to the movie theatre to see this, I can recommend this movie.