What It's All About.

Rating: 5/10 (20 July 2016)

In the post-war period, when existentialism was in flower, everybody was reciting Jean-Paul Sartre: "Existence precedes essence," meaning you can do and be anything you want, as long as you're willing to accept the consequences of your choice.
That's what this movie is about. There is this supernatural entity called The Adjustment Bureau -- represented by unsmiling guys wearing hats -- that determines your future by arranging incidents that bring that future about.
Take Matt Damon's character. He's a very low-level politician but there's a presidency in his future if the Adjustment Bureau has its way. That's his essence, so to speak. They manipulate events so that he accidentally bumps into Emily Blunt, who inspires him to give a candid speech that increases his political hooper rating.
As far as the bureau is concerned, that's it. Blunt's purpose is fulfilled. She made him give a good speech. Now she's supposed to disappear from his life because HER destiny is to become a world-famous ballerina. If she and Damon were to hook up, it would spoil the bureau's plans for both of them. Damon would wind up an Alderman and she would teach dance to six-year-olds.
But Damon has his own ideas about where he's going and he fights the bureau's plans. It's HE who will determine his essence, and that of Blunt as well.
It sounds a little complicated, and it is. The writer/director is George Nolfi, an intelligent and perceptive artist. He's maybe a little too sophisticated for most audiences. The Chairman of the bureau -- presumably some sort of divine presence -- is referred to but never shown, except symbolically by sunshine. That's one example of the kind of symbolism that escaped my apperceptive apparatus. I only learned about it, and about other details and intentions, from the director's commentary on the DVD.
Actually, it confused the hell out of me. Not just the symbolism. Damon seems to fall in love with Blunt after a five-minute bout of banter with her. Then he drifts in and out of her life over a period of years, rescuing her at the last minute from marriage to someone else. The romance seemed forced rather than organic, although it's needed because it provides the source of conflict between the bureau's desires and Damon's individualism. It almost devolves into an examination of free will which, in a way, I guess it is.
It would have been a more successful movie if -- and you can't imagine how much I hate saying this -- if it had been slightly dumbed down.