Something to watch tonight: Friday 25 October
The Adjustment Bureau (Nolfi, 2011)
Every Friday, in my Nights conversations with Emile, I have to come up with at least one recommendation that is free to stream. It’s a good plan and serves to remind me each week that not everyone can claim streaming subscriptions as a tax deductible expense.
Today I was looking at what had just landed on TVNZ+ (here in Aotearoa New Zealand) and my eye was caught by The Adjustment Bureau, a film I vaguely recall enjoying but haven’t given a thought to for nearly 13 years.
My review back in March 2011 looked like this:
Reversing my usual pattern, I have saved the best until last this week. The Adjustment Bureau is based on a Philip K. Dick short story (like Blade Runner, Minority Report and seemingly dozens of others) and stars Matt Damon as a talented New York politician with a gift for self-sabotage. When he falls for beautiful (and funny) contemporary dancer Emily Blunt, he starts to see strange men in suits and trilbys rearranging the mental furniture and suspects something is up. It turns out these fugitives from the set of “Mad Men” (including one genuine Mad Man, John Slattery) are “executives” sent by “the Chairman” to redirect people back to “the plan” when they stray.
That’s right – we have no free will, we just think we do, and Matt Damon has seen the secret. In order to be with the woman he loves, he must outwit the be-hatted ones (including the great Terence Stamp), find the Chairman and persuade him to change the Plan. What helps is that these agents of (let’s just call him) God have somewhat limited powers. In fact you might say they are only partially omnipotent.
The real strength of this slightly silly adventure is the warm, witty and fresh relationship between Blunt and Damon – smarter and more genuinely romantic than any rom-com. You really root for this couple and the investment pays off. I enjoyed The Adjustment Bureau and wouldn’t mind watching it again – and I hardly ever say that.
But I never did watch it again, life moves on too fast. The Adjustment Bureau is one of those films that you won’t regret watching even if it wasn’t a big enough success to have lingered in the collective consciousness.
Damon and Blunt are two of the best we have – I’m kind of amazed to realise they have both been around so long. I recommended Blunt’s debut film, My Summer of Love, here last year and that came out twenty years ago.
Also in that Capital Times column: Saw VII (“… it seemed lacklustre to me, as if the team’s heart wasn’t really in it. Maybe it had been ripped out in a previous ‘game’.”), Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis in the Farrelly Brothers’ awful Hall Pass, and “sci-fi for the Twilight generation” I Am Number Four.
Where to watch The Adjustment Bureau
Aotearoa: Streaming on TVNZ+ (free with ads)
Australia: Streaming on Paramount+
Canada: Streaming on Prime Video
Ireland & UK: Streaming on Sky
USA: Digital rental