The Adjustment Bureau

I’m sorry, but if someone is predestined for something big, they shouldn’t waste their time with love, which is nothing but a solace for blundering mortals! :-) Anyway, The Adjustment Bureau is a nice genre crossover flick that places a hackneyed romance plot in an original setting and enriches it with interesting musings about destiny. A week after watching it, I’m increasing my rating to four stars thanks to the film’s originality. If it had a different, sadder ending, I wouldn’t have hesitated. (27/03/2011)

A story from life. Except for the fact that my "angels" don't wear stylish hats. Plus there’s the excellent Damon, the great Blunt, a good soundtrack, and on top of that the visual fetish of Manhattan. Maybe in time, it will fade, but now it hit harder than anything else in the last year or so. [Spoiler possibility: I'll have to read Dick’s book, if only for the fact that I’m interested to see if the same wave of positive feelings spills over at the end as with the movie. :)] (21/06/2011)

I say it all the time: Do you want an original sci-fi idea? Close your eyes, stick your hand in the pile of Phillip K Dick's unfilmed thoughts, don't mess it up and success is guaranteed. Like, for example, The Adjustment Bureau. The short and unremarkable short story “Adjustment Team" (which begins with a dialogue between two clerks, one of whom is a man and the other a dog, the dog being big and black, and I'll bet that in the film adaptation he became the black janitor, because they both make practically the same mistake - they fall asleep) has become an original sci-fi "angel-god" fairy tale without unnecessary action scenes, without violence and without expensive special effects, which is very pleasant to watch. The debuting director handled it well, The Adjustment Bureau is pleasantly magical from start to finish, the actors also played their part... Yes, I am satisfied.__P.S. Anyone who wants to read the story will find it in the second volume of the collection “Second Variety".__P.P.S. Now, Hollywood, please make me a movie of that blackly humorous book “Counter-Clock World". Thank you. (08/09/2011)

Has it ever happened to you that you meet Ms (or Mr) Right and circumstances spoiled it all for you? Well it wasn’t the circumstances, but guys in hats controlling your fate. A refreshing plot, even fateful romance (Dick is an endless fountain of ideas), excellently transformed into movie format. Nolfi may not be Spielberg or Scott, but he best captures the playfulness and versatility of P.K. Dick’s imagination. Matt Damon plays another nice guy and Emily Blunt is surprisingly well matched to him. Maybe it doesn’t deserve a clean five, but I have a weakness for this genre. And Thomas Newman rocks again. (23/06/2011)

A nice surprise. Damon and Blunt are strong together, and Nolfi's attempt to diversify the romance of the (ex)congressman and dancer with the sci-fi element of "destiny controllers" worked, especially since his retro approach shows exaggeration, not an attempt to extract something extremely effective from Dick's story. Against each other stand a politician in love and a cute bunch of officials in hats, in whose scuffed notebooks a clear probabilistic map of the world is written. If we stop looking for philosophical consistency or logic in this, The Adjustment Bureau will reward us with a surprisingly fresh mix of thriller and romantic drama. Unlike 500 Days of Summer or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the film doesn’t quite have poetics, but debutant Nolfi is very skilled and knows what he wants to shoot. After my initial skepticism and sarcasm (four old men in bucket hats run the world? WTF?) I just had a great time (although with my eyebrows raised every now and then), which I don't usually do with film love stories. Points for Nolfi. P.S. I finally understand where Mr. Tau came from. (22/02/2011)