The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau wasn't a bad movie like I thought it would be. Fans of Philip K. Dick like myself get a bit weary when we hear that Hollywood is adapting one of his tales for the big screen because the results have been mixed in the past. Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly were great but there's also been schlock like Next, Paycheck, and Impostor. When I saw that Matt Damon was in the lead role I wasn't exactly filled with confidence that this adaptation of Dick's "The Adjustment Team" would do anything more than grab the story's premise and then layer chase upon chase atop it. Much to his credit, director and screenwriter George Nolfi kept much of the original short story both in plot and in theme.

David Norris is running for Congress. His campaign is going well until the NY Post runs a revelatory photo which sends it into a tailspin. Entering the men's room at a posh hotel, Norris asks if there's anyone in the stalls but gets no reply so he practices his concession speech. After several minutes he hears what sounds like a set of keys falling to the floor and swearing underneath someone's breath. A woman, Elise, played by Emily Blunt, emerges from a stall and confesses that she's been there the whole time. She says that she's hiding out from hotel security since she crashed a wedding party. Elise is a free spirit and she and Norris engage in a few minutes of dialogue that is as lissome as that between Walter and Hildy in His Girl Friday but here the chat is less antagonistic and demonstrates that the pair have a definite attraction for one another.

With his Congressional aspirations on hold, Norris goes into the private sector. We also meet Harry, one of group of men clad in coats and fedoras that are keeping a watchful eye on the political hopeful. (A little inspiration from Dark City, perhaps?) Harry is instructed to ensure that Norris spills coffee on his shirt by 7:05 but his cat nap on a park bench goes on for just bit too long and his subject gets on the bus at his usual time. After paying his fare, Norris sees Elise, strikes up a chat, and gets her phone number. He gets to work only to find that time has stopped there and that a group of men are waving glowing wands around the heads of his frozen co-workers.

This adheres to Dick's story pretty well which impressed me. In "The Adjustment Team" Norris is Ed Fletcher and is a real estate agent instead of an aspiring Congressman. What appears to be a dog next door is something under the control of the Team. It sleeps just a smidgen too long and ends up barking too late. Fletcher, in turn, is late for work where he encounters a similar team adjusting his office. While the film sees the Adjusters tinkering with the thoughts of people, the short story has them recreating the building and adjusting not only people's thoughts but also their appearances.

And just as in the story, Norris meets the Adjusters. The crack team at his place of employment is led by Richardson who ably demonstrates how he and his fellow fedora-clad teammates can walk through doors and be taken to places other than adjacent rooms. Norris awakes in a large, empty warehouse where Richardson explains that a mysterious "Chairman" has a plan for him and that it is the duty of the folks in hats to make sure that Norris stays to the script, which involves him eventually becoming president. Unfortunately, Elise is not part of this master political plan and he is told to forget about her. As with Fletcher, Norris is warned not to not tell a soul about Richardson and the rest of The Adjustment Bureau lest he have his whole mind "reset".

The rest of the film chronicles Norris' attempts to reunite with Elise. We discover that they were to be together in previous drafts of the plan that the Chairman had for Norris, hence his indefatigable will to deviate from the current scheme and be with Elise. Romantic mission creep, so to speak, and the film uses this to ponder the old free will vs. predestination debate. Nolfi does a good job here of advocating for one side and then muddling everything so as not to offer a definitive answer. The fact that there is this Chairman with a master plan speaks in support of the latter but a sympathetic Harry allies himself with Norris and explains that The Adjustment Bureau's powers are limited – it can't just create reality from whole cloth. Instead it nudges people in whatever direction it is ordered to. Another example of this confusion can be found in Richardson's lecture to Norris when he is captured. Richardson tells him to forget about Elise instead of pursuing her, i.e. – exercise some free will in the matter. Yet, as we are told, there are members of the Bureau who can, shall we say, take things to DefCon 5 and have Norris' mind "reset".

[SPOILER ALERT]

At the end of the film, Harry announces that the Chairman, in light of the love between Norris and Elise and their determination to be with one another, has changed the plan and will allow them to remain with one another.

So does anyone really have free will? The movie is extremely ambivalent about the issue.

Is the Chairman a simple analogy to Yahweh and the Bureau comprised of angels? It seems that way. There's a hierarchy in the Bureau with the Chairman at the top and figures like Thompson, a big gun sent in to convince Norris to forget about Elise, perhaps being an archangel and Richardson and Harry being lower orders. In one scene Harry explains that most people have seen the Chairman they just didn't know it – a sort of omnipresence in addition to omniscience. It sure seems like the film is talking metaphorically about the Judeo-Christian deity but you can't say that definitively. Harry explains that water neutralizes the monitoring ability of the Bureau so they're not all that omnipotent. I've read that the film originally had a different ending in which Norris meets the Chairman who turns out to be a woman and an African-American one to boot. Keeping the identity of the Chairman hidden probably worked better than revealing her because it keeps the viewer guessing and asking questions and certainly bolsters the analogy to Yahweh or at least to some other higher, supernatural power.

I think that PKD would be satisfied with how Nolfi took his short story and used it to expound upon the theme of free will. While I found this theme to be the most interesting part of the film, it was developed arm in arm with a love story. When I walked out of the theatre, I felt that the romance felt contrived. Sure, Damon and Blunt had good onscreen chemistry but their relationship was mostly about being separated and overcoming the skullduggery of the Bureau instead of developing a bond. But, upon reflection, I think it adds to the thematic tension. Do Norris and Elise have a genuine love or are their feelings merely a palimpsest from the Chairman's pen?

For the most part The Adjustment Bureau works for me because Nolfi keeps me questioning the main theme of free will and he treated the Phildickian material with respect instead of lacing it with car chases and shoot outs to morph it into Inception. I suppose one can analyze various scenes and bits of dialogue only to end up in an infinite regression, never reaching a solid answer, which I suppose to have been his intent. The love story seems intrusive in its shallowness as I've become used to Hollywood movies always having a shallow romance because some chairman at a studio says you need a love interest. But, if I think around this habit, I feel it fits into the overarching theme quite nicely. However, I found Harry's change of heart to have come out of left field. The film didn't provide much motivation for him to turn on his "employer", although it did add to the Gordian knot by bringing up the issue of whether or not he had free will. Lastly, I found the ending to be unsatisfying. It was just too neat and happy and conflicted uncomfortably with the film up to that point which felt like being trapped walking along a Möbius strip.