The Adjustment Bureau – Film Reveiw by Claire Jefferys

The Adjustment Bureau stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. This film is loosely based on a short story by Phillip K Dick called the Adjustment Team. The Adjustment Bureau is a Romantic Science fiction thriller genre of films which I feel can appeal to all.

Now most people would talk about Matt Damon first as he is the ‘Star’ of the film but I feel that Emily Blunt as Elise possibly stole this title as her performance was brilliant. I wanted to live her life of spontaneity and free living. Blunt pulls off the role of Contemporary Ballet Dancer and makes it believable.

Matt Damon plays the role of David Norris; New York’s bad boy of politics, trying to get to senate. Norris meets Elise in a hotel toilet when practising his speech and his world is turned upside down. Elise encourages him to be honest and he goes completely off script.

Enter the Adjustment Bureau. These are a team of people who are there to guide you on the right path and they will stop at nothing to make sure you stay on that path. This is where the film begins to fall in the science fiction genre of the film and also takes the comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s smash hit ‘Inception’. The Bureau can step through doors to aid their adjustments to your path so they can go from being on the Statue of Liberty to the New York Yankees Stadium with the turn of a door knob.

David’s path is confused when the Bureau’s team member that is meant to be steering him on the correct path falls asleep and misses the ‘kick’. David meets Elise for a second time on the bus and gets her number. This causes the Bureau to kidnap David for use of a better word, to explain how his path is written and that he was only meant to see Elise once and they destroy the number.

We now enter the romantic science fiction thriller part as we have the love story along with all the science fiction kicks and effects, the Fight for love that plays out with all its typical Hollywood twist and turns. I don’t use typical in the sense of; oh god here we go again as I didn’t feel that at all. I just mean that yes it is Boy meets girl, Boy looses girl, Boy finds girl, Girl is mad at boy etc etc but it’s is done very well not a teenage love story. You will them to go against the Bureau and prove their love is the plan and not what the ‘Chairman’ (the films version of God) has written.

I really enjoyed The Adjustment Bureau and as I said at the beginning the outstanding performance of the film for me was Emily Blunt but then I have always liked anything that Emily Blunt is in and I hope this film gives her the roles she deserves as an actress. If you like a Good-Old fashioned love story then this film is for you. If you like Science Fiction films with questions to be asked then again this film is for you. Also I must mention Terence Stamp as Thompson the Top Agent for the Bureau and Anthony Mackie as Harry Mitchell the agent sent to watch Norris. Both play their roles very well, Stamp is smooth and quite eerie as well where Mackie is laid back and willing to help.

Coming Soon!

Hop starring Russell Brand. An Easter film about a young rabbit EB who runs away to Hollywood to pursue his dreams of stardom. Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal plays a pilot whose is sent on a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago Train.