The Adjustment Bureau Review

• 7th Mar 2011

We are given another adaptation of Philip K Dick source material and whilst most of his texts consider the future and identity – it is treated here in more of a romantic drama style.

We find David Norris (Matt Damon), a young politician on the rise who, after a blunder in his campaign, runs into a young free spirited dancer, Elise (Emily Blunt) by chance. This short, but intense, encounter sends him reeling. His campaign picks up momentum, but he is left wondering about the woman he just met.  Time passes and by pure accident he encounters her again on a bus.

Enter the adjustment bureau – a group of individuals whose job it is to make sure that man’s fate follows a certain path.  This second chance meeting it turns out was not meant to happen and they set about trying to keep the couple apart. But is it too late? Has true love set in? And what will the consequences be?

The world of the bureau is one that is perhaps too complex to do justice to, or make much sense of, so it is perhaps better that we are given limited information about it and the people who work within. There are far too many opportunities for the logic to break down with the pursuit they are currently on and the ending could well ring of a slight cop-out.

The central relationship and chemistry between Emily Blunt and Matt Damon is what makes this film really work. Both actors can’t seem to put a foot wrong in the business at the moment and it is evidenced here in this film.

The director has a trick or two yet to learn but overall as the complexity builds he puts his faith in the script and lets it dictate how to use the cameras. Overall it is an enjoyable film that saves us from too much plot exposition, but is also perhaps tinkering on bull-shitting the rules past us for the sake of story. The material is far too interesting an idea for a viewer to worry too much about such issues though. This is what may bother you on a second viewing.

This ranks in the middle of the PKD adapted works but by no means is it mediocre. The idea of identity is looked at in a different way here. The perspective here is not so much “who am I?” as it is “who am I supposed to be?”

Steven Hurst