Is everything planned? Really?

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2017)

You know how it is. When someone tragically dies, you are supposed to think that it was God's will and we do not understand his plans. Or if you like, we can't understand the big picture, but there is a meaning behind all the suffering. In the Adjustment Bureau, the protagonist has the courage to ask if it is morally acceptable to make people suffer against their will, if it is your power not to do so. Shouldn't the plan be better? This is a pretty daring question in a theological context and would easily have led the questioner to lose his life in the past. Some would call it blasphemy even today. The short stories Philip K. Dick wrote back in the 1950's are a bit dated by now but they still inspire the best in American film making just as his novels of the 1960's do. The superior being who adjusts things on the ground to comply to his plans is called the Old Man in the original story, in the film the title is more bureaucratic, so it 's not clear if we are dealing with God, an AI or some other entity. It's your call. Einstein said that God does not play dice. But in the story and the film he certainly does so as his adjustment agents keep on tweaking the odds to keep his plan going. The first time around I didn't really like the film as I was having a hard time deciding if it was a sci-fi or a religious film or simply a romantic comedy with an unusual amount of action. So I decided to give it a second chance and the film began to make much more sense. Besides asking the viewer a lot of very difficult questions the film also incorporates a mighty romance. Normally I do not go for the romantic comedy genre, but Matt Damon and Emily Blunt act the parts in a Casablanca kind of manner. It's hard to define but if you have seen the film you already know what I mean. I never knew Matt Damon could be so intense. The scene where the couple accidentally meet in a men's rest room is absolutely thrilling to watch. As far as adaptations of Philip K. Dicks groundbreaking work go, the Adjustment Bureau has to be one of the most imaginative.