Loosely based on a short story written by Philip K. Dick and titled Adjustment Team, The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi and staring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, manages to stay afloat much thanks to Damon’s performance. I have not read the short story that inspired the film, but I can imagine it being much better as a written story than visualized in film format. The film’s frame story is weak in credibility and tends to slide into poor attempts of explaining its flawed logic. The message of freewill over destiny, an idea as old as, at least, the birth of Greek tragedy, is presented in a pretentious way and really means close to nothing. Ideas such as defining destiny by bravery, and true love – yeah, we got that. Luckily Matt Damon is there for the rescue, escorted by a decent team of supporting cast.
Imagine Kafka meets Inception, meets the Matrix, meets any banal love story you wish to throw into the mix... So why bother? Don’t. If you have a better movie to see, go elsewhere. If there is nothing else and you really feel like seeing a film, as was the case here, George Nolfi’s film is not that horrible. It is a noble attempt that, unfortunately, is not as mature conceptually as it seemed intended of being.