What if what we think of as spirits were actually beings that looked like us, guided our affairs and worked for a mysterious figure known as The Chairman? That’s the question “The Adjustment Bureau,” a new movie based on a Philip K. Dick short story, asks.
Actually, the movie poses a lot questions. For example, the agents of the Bureau carry books that contain animated blueprints. These are the plans the Chairman has drawn up for each person’s life. The agents enforce the blueprints, steering each individual in the right direction.
When someone veers off course, an agent gives him a nudge. For example, if a man’s destiny will be unsuitably altered by meeting a certain woman on a bus, an agent will cause him to spill his coffee on his shirt, prompting him to return to his apartment and change, thereby missing the bus.
So, if a higher power has laid out our lives in advance, what role does free will play in our existence? Why does The Chairman allow some people to prosper and others to die young? Would we be better off on our own or would we have pressed the red button during the Cold War? Can we break free from the marionette strings and live as we choose?
Like “Inception,” “The Adjustment Bureau” explores thought-provoking themes, even as it aims to entertain viewers with chases and special effects. Unlike “Inception,” however, “The Adjustment Bureau” wastes its potential on a gutless ending.
David Norris accidentally stumbles through the veil between the earthly plane of existence and the one from which the agents come when he meets Elisa on the night he loses an election to become a New York senator. The Chairman had arranged their encounter to inspire David to stay in politics, but did not intend for them to meet again.
The following morning, an agent named Harry is supposed to keep David from getting on the bus on which Elise is riding, but he literally falls asleep on the job, allowing the two lovers to connect and strike up a cosmically forbidden romance.
The efforts of the Bureau to cover its tracks and force David back on course fail when he catches them “inserting ideas” into his co-worker’s mind. In the scene, David enters a conference room to find his friend frozen in place as men in three-piece suits and fedoras scan him with odd-looking equipment.
The agents, looking a lot like God’s G-Men, capture David and carry him through a door that acts as a gateway to the world in which they live. (It looks just like ours.) There, the agents decide to tell David just enough about themselves to slake his curiosity, and threaten to wipe his memory if he ever reveals their existence.
They also tell him he can never see Elise again, as their relationship would keep him from becoming president of the United States and her from achieving global fame as a ballet dancer.
As much as I like the core scenario, and especially enjoyed a chase sequence during which the participants jump from one New York City landmark to another by stepping through doors, the best part of “The Adjustment Bureau” is the romance between David and Elise. It’s rare that two actors truly create the illusion of love, so it was a pleasure to watch Matt Damon and Emily Blunt light up with attraction, blunder their way through their first few encounters and then fall deeply for each other.
Their relationship creates an emotional core that’s missing from a lot of science fiction. Just as remarkable is how Damon and Blunt achieve this level of substance with so little screen time together.
Unfortunately, “The Adjustment Bureau” ends poorly. Al-though some viewers will like the way it wraps up, the last scene is jarringly out of sync with the rest of the movie. Imagine listening to “Unchained Melody” on a record player, and just as the song is getting good, the needle scratches across the surface of the LP.
Especially grating in the final scene is the dialogue, which casually discards all of the interesting questions and ideas the movie raised.
Given the above, I wondered if portions of “The Adjustment Bureau” had been reshot, most likely to please the suits who’d put up the money for the picture, and a quick Google search revealed they had been. Universal Pictures actually delayed the release of the “The Adjustment Bureau” eight months to shoot and incorporate new scenes.
I hope the original cut makes it onto the DVD, as there’s a great movie in there. As it stands, “The Adjustment Bureau” falls short of the mark for which it initially aims.
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexuality and a violent image. Two-and-a-half stars out of four. Next week: “Battle: Los Angeles.” Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.