An upstart
politician runs afoul of the forces that control destiny to save his love life.
A fair representative
of the recent wave of “high concept” movie, “The Adjustment Bureau” got a splendid
jumping point of a concept and some crazy visuals to accompany it.
It all
starts with a Phillip Dick short story but as it often happens with those it is
more of an inspiration than a straight adaptation. It’s that paranoia
sensibility that translated so well in movies.
The love
story bit is the main original addition by writer director George Nolfi. It’s
certainly a good idea, it gives us a reason to care about the whole thing and
position this movie in that awesome category, the Metaphysical Romantic movies,
also known as Meta – Rom.
Matt Damon
is perfect as the everyday man with the weight of the world on its shoulders,
many argued that he was born to play average Joe in extraordinary
circumstances. Emily Blunt as the love interest is as good as usual. She always
manages to communicate some kind of intensity, even though the cheesiest lines.
The main strength,
the high concept, sadly becomes the main weakness. The filmmakers clearly
feared that they would lose their audience trough if the movie becomes too
bizarre and so they played their hand incredibly tight.
A concept
like this want to be expanded, played with, at least a little bit. Think of the
final act of “Groundhog day”, that is the high mark on how an high concept
movie should develop.
Not only
they didn’t dare, they also filmed a very contrived finale that basically
solves the entire conundrum with a literal Deus Ex Machina.
It looked
so promising coming in.
Conclusion:
An interesting little movie that doesn’t deliver on what was promised.
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