Some Reflections On Free Will & Predeterminism

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2012)

"The Adjustment Bureau" has some interesting reflections on the idea of human free will, couched in a quasi-religious atmosphere, and it is at times thought-provoking if not, in my opinion, all that deep an exploration of the subject. Essentially the first question is whether there are limits to free will and, if so, what the limits are. The answer is that of course there are limits to free will. The fact that I have free will is somewhat limited by your free will. I may be able to make choices, but to some extent my choices are going to be dependent on your choices. Our free wills both complement and challenge one another's. So, there are obvious limits to free will. From the movie's perspective the question is of both free will and "predeterminism" (the idea that all things are planned; that there are no coincidences.) The movie doesn't go that far. It acknowledges that there are small matters over which we do have free will (such as what kind of toothpaste we use) but it also makes clear that our lives are part of a larger plan, and that adjustments will be made to our actions in order to ensure that the plan gets carried out.
There's the obvious religious overtone to this. Who's in control of the plan? In the movie it's "The Chairman" - assisted by secret agent, "Men in Black" looking types (represented primarily by Anthony Mackie and Terence Stamp.) The question is "who's The Chairman?" The obvious answer might be God, with the "agents" then being angels whose job is to ensure that whatever the cosmic plan is gets fulfilled. I wondered, however, from a fairly early point whether this was some sort of computer simulation game, with the Chairman being the programmer and the agents being a sort of anti-virus component that repairs the program is it gets messed up. The movie never really makes clear what's going on in that respect.
That decision to leave a lot of things up in the air is probably the movie's biggest weakness. What was going on was never really resolved. Overall, though, I liked the movie. It wasn't particularly fast-paced, but Matt Damon and Emily Blunt were likable leads who worked pretty well together. I would think of this movie as a diversion far more than a masterpiece. (6/10)