The Adjustment Bureau (2011) film review.

The title of writer/director George Nolfi’s SCI-FI action romance The Adjustment Bureau is one of the least enticing of recent times. Those three uninspiring words do make sense in a story context; they sound like a description of a government department. Fitting, perhaps, given the film is more or less about one – though whether the surreptitious actions of a group of humanity “organisers” it imagines are representatives of a human, alien or divine governing body is left for the viewer to ponder.

Loosely based on a Philip K. Dick short story, Matt Damon plays David Norris, an ambitious young politician whose dreams of becoming a senator are put on hold after an election night drubbing. Rehearsing his concession speech in the men’s room, David bumps into colourful freewheeling spirit Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). Within moments getting it on, on the bathroom counter.

Elise isn’t, however, just any toilet dwelling floozy – at least not for David. It takes him about a minute and a half to deduce the she is unequivocally The One, spending the rest of the story hopelessly smitten. 

The trouble is: a group of super-human bureaucrats in suits and homburgs believe their romance is strictly forbidden. They carry books that look like a cross between diaries and portable GPS systems, and grouse about how David and Elise’s romance does not fit into “the plan.” This is a precisely designed vision of the future orchestrated for humanity’s benefit, by a figure known only as “The Chairman.”

The suits use extraordinary powers, such as telekinesis and mind manipulation, to keep humanity progressing in accordance with the Chairman’s vision. Orders from high are crystal clear: David and Elise must not be together, for reasons we discover in time. The syrupy message of the film is obvious: never give up on love, fight for what you believe in, a yada yada.

For the film’s central SCI-FI component to resonate, the suit-clad super-powered bureaucrats needed to have gravitas. Instead they float on and off the frame as angel-like stereotypes more comic book than cinema; more Stan Lee than Wim Wenders. You can’t take them seriously, though Nolfi’s approach is deadpan.

At the one point the story establishes an interesting dilemma – that the cost of true love means forfeiting your vocational dreams – but ditches it in favour of an open-ended and predictable have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too trajectory. While Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are fine as the two “off the plan” lovebirds, it’s hard to believe that such a fleeting initial encounter could spark feelings this strong, on which the story relies.

One scene depicting Norris on a deranged feat of strength / race against the clock, wearing a special hat that enables him to use standard doors as magical portals to leap between different areas of the city, should have been a corker. But Nolfi’s direction is just as humourless as the personalities of bureaucrats; it’s not much fun.

There are moments when you might admire the movie’s audaciously nonsensical approach to romance. But the aforementioned scene emphasises The Adjustment Bureau’s central problem: it’s too weird and kooky to take seriously, and too stiff-limbed and straight-faced to truly enjoy.

Review published on March 6, 2011.