Movie Review: The Adjustment Bureau

I sum up this movie in one word: “INCREDIBLE”

As a die-hard movie buff, I tend to get totally anal and do a bit of research before I watch any movie to see if it’s worth my time. This carefully honed craft (aka procrastination) means I can usually tell within three minutes of starting any movie if I’m going to love it or hate it. Yes, call me a movie diva!

With The Adjustment Bureau, although I’d seen posters for it, nothing really pulled me to research it. All I knew was that it starred Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. To be honest, I don’t even physically remember requesting this movie, so when I came across it, I just shrugged with a “why not” attitude.

It started off a bit dull – a young, charismatic front-runner in an election campaign, effing up at the last minute due to something he’d done back in his even younger and stupid days. How many times have I seen that in a movie? But then I started wondering why Matt’s character (David Norris) was being portrayed as so young? What was it about him that had made so many people want to vote for him?

Heh, I soon found out his political career had nothing to do with the move! Well, it did in a way…but…read on…

**Spoiler alert**

This was more, so much more than a political movie. At the heart of it was a gut-wrenching love
story. Cue my writer’s happy-ever-after-loving wheeeeeee! Basically, the powers that be - “the adjusters” or angels in men in black suits, had been tasked with keeping David Norris's career on track no matter what.

His destiny, laid out on some funky moving paper tracker thingy, was supposed to be “adjusted” so that it absolutely did not collide with Elise's (Emily Blunt’s character) for the simple reason that their love would impede his intended meteoric rise to become President of the United States.

So he was given a choice – lose the love of his life or watch her lose the one thing she yearned for most – to be the incredibly amazing dancer she was.

At first he arrogantly believes he can have his cake and eat it and boy, does he try hard to! But when the very thing she cares about it threatened, he makes the hard choice.

He gives her up. For a while. But fate being what it was, she crosses his path again. And the fireworks really kicks off when his “guardian angel” tells him that Elise is about to marry someone else.

My heart was in my throat the whole time he was evading the “the adjusters” in order to get to his true love. I cried when he got his girl. And cried even harder when the big boss, “The Chairman”, finally agreed to let him keep her because…well…their love was just too damn strong.

I defy any romance reader or writer to watch this movie and not be moved or inspired to let your fingers fly over your keyboard after your very own happy ever after.

It was awesome, awesome, awesome! Ten out of ten and definitely a keeper for me.