The Adjustment Bureau movie review (2011)

So you might think, but "The Adjustment Bureau" reveals a hidden level of reality by which players can be yanked out of the game. David is confronted in a cavernous industrial space and warned that if he doesn't straighten up, his memory will be erased. This space is reached through a doorway to a place that has no logical possibility of existence; it must be like the bedroom beyond Jupiter in "2001," which was summoned by a greater intelligence to provide the illusion of a familiar space for an unwitting subject.

The plot develops into a cat-and-mouse game of the mind, in which David and Elise, in love and feeling as if they're destined for each other, try to outsmart or elude the men in the suits and hats. This is fun, and because Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have an easy rapport, it doesn't seem as preposterous as it is. Beneath its apparent sci-fi levels, a romantic comedy lurks here.

If you're like me, you're thinking the universe in this movie is run by a singularly inefficient designer. There is no room for chance in predestination. If there is a plan, you can't allow tinkering. There's a well-known sci-fi precept that warns if you travel back far enough in time and step on the wrong insect, you could wipe out the future. By the time we meet a very, very serious senior adviser named Thompson (Terence Stamp), we begin to suspect that his employer has delusions of grandeur.

Thompson gives the appearance of being firmly in control and knowing all the right buttons to push, but his problem is, David and Elise have seen behind the curtain and realize they need not be instruments of a plan. There's even the intriguing possibility that the Adjusters themselves have some freedom of choice.

"The Adjustment Bureau" is a smart and good movie that could have been a great one if it had a little more daring. I suspect the filmmakers were reluctant to follow its implications too far. What David and Elise signify by their adventures, I think, is that we're all in this together, and we're all on our own. If you follow that through, the implications are treacherous to some, not all, religions. In the short term, however, the movie is a sorta heartwarming entertainment.

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