A romance based on a Phillip K Dick short story

Rating: 5/10 (1 August 2011)

Trust Hollywood to take a perfectly good Phillip K Dick short story and totally butcher it. Well, the movie wasn't that bad, but from when I first saw the trailer I knew that it was a Phillip K Dick story, but after discovering that the movie is about how manipulative force is attempting to keep the two protagonists (who have fallen in love) apart is typical of a Hollywood butchering.
Granted, I have argued with my friend as to whether Dick does write romance into his stories or not, but with this film, it is irrelevant, because the original story was not about a romance, but rather about a man who accidentally stumbles upon a department whose job is to subtly adjust the events of the world to send it on a specific course, which in the end will be beneficial to humanity.
In this film the question of whether we are in control of our life, or whether external forces control us, is explored. However the insinuation is that the head of the bureau is God, and the people that perform the work of the Bureau are his angels. This question is asked of them, but it is given a very coy answer.
However, the theme of this film is the question of freewill, and whether free will is good for us. Of course, the main characters are fighting against the bureau to make their own choice, which is against the plan of the bureau, and the climax has them being given the gift of freewill as their determination to create their own destiny.
Is the desire for free will good or not? I guess that is the point the movie tries to way, and it says that it is, however it is only good in the hands of responsible people. Everybody else is simply not mature enough to be allow to make their own choices, because if they do, then disaster will arise.
Free will is a theme that the bible explores, but does not give us a real answer as the who idea of free will is caught up in the idea of predestination. We are free to chose to become Christians, but then we are also told that we have been selected since before time to become Christians. This whole concept, though, is caught up in extra-planar ideas that are so far beyond us understanding that it is a concept that we will not be able to grasp until such a time as we are freed from the chains that bound us.