Review: The Adjustment Bureau or Is This Supposed to be Subtle?

Let me start by saying I didn’t hate The Adjustment Bureau. Really. I didn’t.

My sister, brother, and cousin, however are another story. They left the theatre disappointed and slightly annoyed. “Too preachy,” they said. “Stupid ending,” they said. And my favorite comment: “What a cop out.”

The last was said by my cousin in reference to the final scene of the movie which I’m going to SPOIL in the following paragraphs. Forewarned, forearmed, and all that jazz.

Ostensibly, The Adjustment Bureau  is the story of Matt Damon, young politician extraordinaire, and Free Will. When he botches his chances at his first Senate election, Damon disappears to that font of all knowledge, the restroom, in order to rehearse his consolation speech. There he meets the lovely Emily Blunt in a gorgeous dress and no shoes (in a public washroom!) who inspires him to cut the crap and just speak from the heart.

They share a passionate kiss (again…public washroom…it would be sexier if I weren’t thinking about all the germs crawling up between her toes…she’s a modern dancer, she needs those toes!) and he goes on to inspire his constituents and set himself up as the front runner for the next election.

Blah, blah, blah he doesn’t see her again except for an incident of random chance where some guy in a hat falls asleep and doesn’t knock over Damon’s coffee cup before 7:05 am, THE HORROR.

So he sees Emily on the bus and they chat and he gets her number and does a happy dance and he gets to work early as the hatted man runs after the bus. Fun fact, the hatted man’s name is Harry. Like this:

Anyhoo, upon arriving to work, Damon finds that everyone is frozen in place and there’s some people sticking electrodes and flashing the Men in Black forget everything sticks at his friend. It’s the Adjustment Bureau! Swankily dressed men with vests and little hats with trench coats and apparently power over the laws of nature.  They capture Damon after a scene wherein they walk through walls and the movie slowly dissolves into nonsense.

The men are Angels. Kinda. Or anyway, they do that cocky grin when asked point blank by Damon. Honestly I was mildly impressed that they got that out of the way so early in the movie. But it does begin to set up the Head-Bashingly-Un-Subtle “Ooh, it’s an Analogy!” that will pretty much eclipse the rest of the movie.

Damon’s Plan (found in these little Moleskines the Hatted Ones carry around) does not include Emily Blunt. Her Plan does not include Matt Damon. But somehow they keep feeling as if they are pulled together; their Plans must align, right?

"What is it?" "I don't know! They never explain the squiggles!"

It turns out that in earlier versions of their respective Plans, these two lovebirds were destined for each other. 

The Plan changed.

Because of the horrific head whacking, the movie makes sure you know that this is supposed to be The Big Issue. It’s going to change the way everyone thinks about God and Free Will. The revelation that these ultimate Free Will Plans being touted and protected by Angels, plans that come directly from “The Chairman” (read: God) can be changed is supposed to throw a monkey wrench in how we think about our lives.

Because the writing is so sloppy, what you actually get is the audience’s communal sigh and the wish that perhaps Damon and Emily won’t end up together, maybe then the movie will be surprising.

A movie that takes itself this seriously needs to live up to its claims, but The Adjustment Bureau doesn't. Instead the end is just a giant example of deux ex machina mixed with some hand-waving. The hats (yes, the physical, I-can-knock-it-off-your-head ones) are what allow the Hatted Ones to walk through walls. They blindly follow the will of their Chairman. Instead of feeling intrigued by this dig at the idea of Free Will, we are just tired and unhappy. Somehow the movie has managed to insult those that believe in an ultimate Plan bestowed upon us by a Creator and those who just believe in Free Will, period. 

Ultimately, The Adjustment Bureau was a fun movie that needn’t have taken itself so seriously. More Inception-esque street chases, more Hatted Ones, and more of Emily Blunt dancing and it would have been a little better.

As my sister said, “I thought it started off well and went down from there... It really wasn’t that complicated…[And] the hats were kinda dumb, too. I mean hats? You can’t think of something cooler?”

…from the mouths of Teens, I guess.

Overall: ~2.5 Giant Pacific Starfish. Good idea, poor execution, and needless complication serve to make this ultimately forgettable. And that’s my Free Will talking.