Towards the end of The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon turns into a crazed, psychotic stalker and accosts a woman while she’s composing herself in the washroom. He tells her about all the things keeping them apart, and then punches a man who walks in the door because he’s wearing a hat. Even though he’s charmingly Matt Damon-ish, it’s still pretty damn creepy.
Rewind a bit: Aspiring politician David Norris (Damon) is planning his concession speech after an unsuccessful run for the Senate. He meets Elise, who’s in the hotel crashing a wedding. They talk. They connect. One might say they fall in love, if one believes falling in love can happen in five minutes. Then they’re separated, never to meet again. Until they do, several months later, by chance, on a bus. They talk, they connect, she gives him her phone number. He never calls her.
They don’t see each other for several years, until they have another chance encounter. This time they’re determined to be together, but things end even worse, particularly for Elise.
But since this is David’s story, we know that he has a good reason for treating Elise so horribly: He’s found out that his life, and the lives of others, are being influenced and occasionally controlled by mysterious hat-wearing figures. You could call them angels, even though no one does in the film. When possible, they adjust people’s destiny through small moves – a spilled cup of coffee was supposed to prevent David and Elise’s second meeting – and sometimes they’re more direct and modify or erase minds. They’ve determined that David and Elise’s destinies are incompatible, and they’re intent on keeping the would-be lovers apart.
The Adjustment Bureau is two stories that don’t complement each other: The first, and by far the most interesting, is about a couple who fall in love and are pushed together and pulled apart by Fate and other Mysterious Forces. Damon and Blunt are strong actors, and they have genuine chemistry together on screen. Blunt’s role could be more significant – this is David’s story, so she doesn’t know what’s really going on until the end of the film – but when they’re together, we don’t care: They’re likeable and intelligent individuals, they’re in love, and we want them to be together. At times they verge on becoming just another odd couple – he’s trying to be responsible, she’s impulsive – but there’s enough legitimate depth to make us believe they’re real people with real emotions.
Which brings us to the reason they can’t be together, the titular Adjustment Bureau. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may know that I hate exposition. Nothing takes me out of a story faster than when characters stand around explaining what’s supposed to be happening. But the Adjustment Bureau agents are all about explaining, because they know what’s going on and what’s supposed to be happening. There’s a plan for the universe, and it’s their job to make sure everything happens the way it should.
But they’re not very good at it. They can alter people’s minds, but apparently can’t remember to lock the door so no one walks in while they’re doing it. They can walk through magical doors and read people’s minds, but they’re powerless when they’re not wearing their special hats. The explanation is that they’re not supposed to have too much power, but most of the time it feels like the movie is explaining its own plot holes.
It doesn’t help that the explanations are all clumsy and obvious. The Adjustment Bureau agents are clearly meant to be angels, and their boss – The Chairman – is obviously God, but no one ever comes out and says it. The dialogue often sounds like it’s meant to be religious scripture, and The Bible would sound pretty stupid if you crossed out every occurrence of “God” and wrote in “The Chairman”.
It’s unfortunate, since director/writer George Nolfi has assembled a fine group of actors to play the agents: Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, and Terence Stamp cover the spectrum from sympathetic to bullying in their approaches to human destiny. They do their best, but are too often stuck explaining what’s happening to David and the audience.
There are many neat ideas in The Adjustment Bureau, but it shows the dangers of loosely basing an entire film on a short story. While it starts strong, it increasingly teeters on its precarious foundation; the more things are explained, the more absurd it all becomes. What starts off as a romance and a meditation on fate and destiny ends up with one character telling another that anyone wearing a hat could be an enemy – a bit like the Agents in The Matrix, but much, much stupider – and an elaborate but ultimately dull chase sequence through a maze of magical doors and 1920s architecture.
The Adjustment Bureau boasts two strong actors in a compelling love story, but it’s periodically interrupted by clunky exposition and meaningless action sequences. It might have been better if the two stories had never crossed, if David and Elise conducted their affair unaware that higher forces were trying to keep them apart. The story of Man vs. Destiny may be profound and ambitious, but it’s hardly a fair fight: Either David is doomed and reliant upon deus ex machina, or the angels and higher powers are utterly incompetent. Few films have a core as compelling as Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, so it’s frustrating to see The Adjustment Bureau squander it in favour of attempts at action and making important statements about mankind.