The argumentative fallacy known as insufficient cause asserts the distance between a given cause and effect in a situation. This logic can be applied in “The Adjustment Bureau,” as in, because Matt Damon did not spill coffee on his shirt one morning, he may have prevented a third golden age in civilization.
There is considerable distance between that cause and effect, but man, Matt Damon looks good in a fedora.
“The Adjustment Bureau” hinges on that balance between a plot that ranges from odd to preposterous and the unfettered silliness of it all, not to mention the charming chemistry between Damon and co-star Emily Blunt.
Damon as an actor can range from stoic action badass in the Bourne movies to suave comic foil in everything from “Ocean’s 11,” “The Informant!” and “30 Rock.” Director and screenwriter George Nolfi has written for Damon in both “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Ocean’s 12,” and he gives Damon free range to act, sticking him in 90 percent of the scenes and encouraging him to casually roll with the screenplay’s absurd punches. Thankfully, Damon capitalizes on every minute, and throughout “The Adjustment Bureau,” his David Norris remains a likable and confident leading man.
At the beginning of the film, David is a 24-year-old senate candidate for New York, famous as a youthful, yet authentic and loose cannon of a politician. Following a scandal at his college reunion, Norris loses the election but meets Elise (Blunt) in of all places, the men’s room as he rehearses his concession speech. The pair hit it off perfectly, notably from the performers and less the script, and that connection carries us throughout the rest of the film.
Thank goodness, because it is at this point that things get weird and silly.
Turns out the meeting between David and Elise was an accident, and a group of supernatural men in suits and fedoras like something straight out of a ’40s noir intervene to prevent the two from meeting again. When one agent played by Anthony Mackie fails to make David spill his coffee on his shirt, another agent played by “Mad Men’s” John Slattery freezes time and space and attempts to alter David’s boss’s decision making process. When David observes this, they warn him to not speak a word about these agents that dictate fate to anyone and forbid him to see Elise again.
How can they control everything you ask? They’re inhuman beings with stenographer pads sketching the “plan” of everyone on Earth. They understand character and reasoning of everyone, and if anyone acts too impulsively to stray from their plan, they make minor adjustments to alter the course of reality without creating too many “ripples” or after effects on other people’s thoughts or choices.
They also hold this power through their magic fedoras, which allow them to transport in between doors and far off places. This makes for a few creative chase scenes later on in the film where David and Elise walk through a closet and end up in Yankee Stadium and then by the Statue of Liberty.
However, this is the only point in the movie where the film literally shows us the power and function of the adjusters rather than simply tell us. Some of the film’s pivotal moments occur in wide open warehouses where Slattery and Terence Stamp monologue to Damon about the implications of his choices. Yeah, they disable a few phone lines and divert a few taxis, but the surprises of “The Adjustment Bureau” are few and far between.
More fun is had in laughing at the ludicrousness of it all. How is it that this relationship of David and Elise can possibly determine the fate of humanity’s future as a species?
And for a few paragraphs, I’d like to explore some of those inconsistencies now. SPOILER ALERT! Why is it these higher beings have so many screw ups all the time? They’re not human and a later revelation indicates that “The Chairman” and all of his agents in this business are more or less God and angels, yet the universe and pure chance gets them over a barrel just as many times as it does the humans.
If they are in charge of everyone’s life plans, why doesn’t David Norris ever ask about the plan behind murders, early death, disease, genocide and simply having a bad day? The film says less about life and more that we are bounded to fate with certain asterisks of free will.
And free will? “The Adjustment Bureau” writes it off pretty hastily in a hilariously overwrought scene where Stamp as Agent Thompson gives a brief history of the world and their own involvement in it. When fate determined a plan, we got the Roman Golden Age and the Renaissance, and with free will, we got the Dark Ages, both World Wars, the Holocaust, the Great Depression (and presumably some Adam Sandler movies). Uh, excuse me, primordial being? Yeah hi, I think you’re missing a few key moments throughout the history of the world. Care to take credit for any period not deemed a peak of humanity?END OF SPOILER ALERT.
These are silly questions, and they could’ve been much worse. Evidence of this is in how important wearing the hats are to the Adjustment team. David is instructed to assume anyone wearing a hat is chasing after him, and ironically there are no women in this organization. Thank goodness we didn’t get a fight or chase scene with characters screaming over or grasping at a fallen hat just out of reach.
Instead, it’s somehow all fun and believable. Damon and Blunt’s love story is a good one, the film is well made and acted, and the level of hokum never exceeds to the point of tedium. It doesn’t have the psychological, sci-fi punch of “Source Code,” but it pulls on all the right strings.
3 stars