Here’s a comforting thought: Secret interdimensional forces armed with higher intelligence guide human behavior toward predetermined destinies. No wait, that sounds more like a sinister conspiracy.
The Adjustment Bureau, the new movie inspired by a Philip K. Dick short story, tries to have it both ways by dramatizing the durable sci-fi construct that humans are too frail, willful and ignorant to be entrusted with free will.
In the film, which opens Friday, director George Nolfi creates a sci-fi date movie of sorts by blending wormhole-traversing fate-shifters with an old-fashioned love story.
(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)
Early in the film, a chilling mind-wipe scene raises expectations for twisty-turny sci-fi villainy, but the creepy suspense soon gives way to a they-were-meant-to-be-together romance. Set against a scene-stealing New York City backdrop, Matt Damon and co-star Emily Blunt play clever, urbane characters involved in a meet-cute who thereafter prove affable enough, even if they fail to generate the kind of epic chemistry required by the storyline.
Damon plays impulsive politician David Norris, who blows his chance at an election with a silly college reunion prank, then has what appears to be a chance encounter with a beautiful stranger (Blunt). Norris soon finds himself in the cross hairs of men in hats. Their mission: Influence the flow of actions rooted in the politician’s “decision tree.”
The movie’s strait-laced guardians, endowed with superior consciousness, intervene in humans’ lives to make sure their subjects stick to a preordained game plan. Members of the Adjustment Bureau periodically “adjust” people’s lives through accidents, decisions and seeming coincidences.
It’s an age-old construct that in this case plays more like guardian angel than conspiratorial mind control.
The Observers, from TV's Fringe, exert influence on human characters.
Image courtesy FoxFrom Christian antiquity to It’s a Wonderful Life‘s avuncular Clarence Odbody and on to Fringe‘s Observers, the concept of superhuman beings keeping tabs on mankind has proven remarkably resilient.
In fact, Adjustment Bureau’s fate-changing puppet masters bear an uncanny resemblance to Fringe’s Observers (characters supposedly modeled on Marvel Comics’ Uatu the Watcher, a bald alien assigned to observe other species).
Comic book alien Uatu reportedly inspired the Observers from Fringe.
Image courtesy Marvel Comics
Members of both groups wear hats and suits. Both carry briefcases or books. Both have existed for centuries on the periphery of human consciousness. Both take orders from unknown superiors and periodically create unintended consequences when they feel compelled to intervene in the lives of the subjects under their watch. But unlike the spooky Fringe operatives, the Adjustment Bureau’s dispassionate caseworkers (played by John Slattery, Anthony Mackie and Terence Stamp) come across more like post office employees than celestial overseers.
“They set us on the course that we are supposed to be set onto so we will follow the grand scheme,” said director Nolfi in a statement about his PG-13 movie, which was inspired by sci-fi writer Dick’s 1954 short story “Adjustment Team.” “They might as well work in the IRS; they’re just doing their jobs.”
As a politically tinged, wormhole-themed rom-com, Adjustment Bureau falls short of classic man-in-a-suit-on-the-run classics like North By Northwest, but successfully ponders the roles played in the course of human events by accident, coincidence, free will and passion.
It’s no Blade Runner, but Adjustment Bureau turns out to be an oddly refreshing reminder that sci-fi movies don’t have to be dark, or dorky, to keep us entertained.
WIRED New York City looks great; Matt Damon sounds smart; Philip K. Dick’s fascination with fate versus free will strikes a resonant chord.
TIRED Weak villains; lackluster plot twists and so-so romantic chemistry fail to deliver chill-inducing third act.
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