SIMPLE choices can have dramatic consequences.
Just getting on a bus could mean you meet someone that changes your life.
But if you miss that bus you might never see that person again.
Some of our most intimate connections with other people are formed purely by chance.
But what if all our ‘choices’ were pre-determined?
That’s the central premise of this intriguing Philip K. Dick story.
Matt Damon plays David Norris who is running for Senate in New York when he meets the feisty Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt).
But David was ‘not meant’ to fall in love with Elise and so the ‘Adjustment Bureau’ sets out to change his fate.
This is where rom com turns sci-fi and to a certain extent it works quite well.
The Adjustment Bureau’s agents are the all-seeing watchmen of the world led by a unnamed and unseen ‘chairman’ (God?)
The Bureau has altered mankind’s path to ensure we avoid destruction after two World Wars, the Holocaust and being on the brink of nuclear war.
But, as you might expect, David chooses free will and fights the odds to find Elise.
Given the impression that the Bureau’s agents are omnipotent, it is quite frustrating then that David and Elise are able to make a fool of them at almost every turn.
But Damon and Blunt almost save the day with great performances and chemistry.
If you can stomach the film’s dreadful and painfully Hollywood-style ending, The Adjustment Bureau has a really interesting concept that will appeal to a wide audience.
