Review: The Adjustment Bureau

4.0

0.0 (0)

It’s planned that some of you will watch this clever romantic thriller, for some of you it’s destiny that you will like it and be moved. Some will think this film is silly, for others this film is not part of your plan.

When I was a kid, to add interest to a game of snooker, we would imagine the coloured balls on the table represented different aspects of life as we know it and we were super beings overseeing the planet Earth. The green ball was nature, the pink represented artificiality, the yellow ball was the sun (you get the picture). We could control the destiny of the planet through each shot however every now and again a ball would stray from the path and a new direction for the planet would unfold.

The Adjustment Bureau explores similar themes of determinism, the theory a single action is one of many predetermined actions forming a chain of events. This is a notion not new to film (Niccol’s “Gattaca”, Speilberg’s “Minority Report”) but always proves interesting.

It’s 2006 in NYC. Matt Damon plays a young politician, David Norris. Thought to be alone he rehearses the speech he must deliver to concede defeat in his election run. Randomly, a woman named Elise (Emily Blunt) happens to overhear David’s recital.  She emerges and provides some advice and chemistry brings them to kiss. They part as he leaves to deliver his speech. A chance encounter days later on a bus reignites the interest they have for each other.

It all seems pretty routine at this early stage in the film until we see a gentleman in a fedora (John Slattery) instructing a similarly dressed colleague to spill coffee on David at an entrance to Central Park at the exact time of 7.05am. Falling asleep, the man fails to carry out his task which was meant to prevent the chance encounter between Elise and David on the bus.

The Fedora-clad men are part of “The Adjustment Bureau” whose job is to correct the chance events in life that can alter “the plan”. The film then steps it up when David finds out about Bureau’s existence. Yearning to be with Elise, he rebels against the plan which sees David’s life as an important future politician, all of which will be jeopardised if their romance continues to blossom.

This film is completely watchable and we reckon it’s a safe bet that most people will enjoy it. The final passage of words is quite inspiring and nicely provides the glue to mend the tense thriller’s tad erratic plot. Go on...Risk it.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

Editor review

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