The Adjustment Bureau

Your life.  What things are chance, and what things are you predestined for?  Do the choices you make affect the rest of your life?  Or is your life already mapped out for you, and you're just following that predetermined path?  What if you deviate from that plan?  Do you mess things up for good, or is there a new path created for you?  And do little things - like missing your bus because you spilled coffee on your shirt and had to go back home to change it - affect what happens in your day...or even your life? 

This is the stuff of The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.  Matt Damon plays David Norris,  a politician who accidentally meets Elise (Blunt) in a men's restroom one evening.  (She's hiding from Security for crashing a wedding, and he is about to give a concession speech).  But sparks fly when they meet each other. Matt Damon's acting is amazing,  because as he meets her and is captivated by her, it was his eyes and his facial expressions that said all that he was feeling, and not necessarily the dialogue.   Naturally, David wants to see Elise again.

But quite by accident, he discovers the Adjustment Bureau, those unseen forces that make sure your life goes according to plan.  (He would have never met them if he had spilled his coffee on his shirt that day and been 10 minutes late for work...)  And by the way, he needs to stay away from Elise and forget he ever met her, because that's not in the plan.  And if he tries to find her, he will set off a chain of events in both their lives that they will both regret. 


This is quite a philosophical movie.  I couldn't help but think of some stories we heard about 9/11 - people who escaped the attack because they overslept, or had to stop and buy a band-aid for a blister on their foot.  I also thought about my hubby, who was on his way out to start a job at a small store, but heard his phone ringing as he was leaving.  He came back in to take the call (he had no answering machine!), and it was a job offer in his current profession.  Had he never taken that job, I would have never met him many years down the line through mutual friends!  Or..would we have met anyway?  I mean, if there's a plan and you mess it up, can your life be "recalculated" to get back on track, just like a GPS unit?

I really enjoyed The Adjustment Bureau.  It was serious in parts, and fun in parts.  There were a few scenes, that seemed almost comical, and I started thinking it was sort of corny...but the funniness added charm.  It also made the men in the Bureau not so menacing, as we realized that they weren't perfect either. 

From the perspective of a Christian - its pretty obvious that we humans pretty much always deviate from the perfect plan for our lives.   But God in His wisdom already knows where and when we will go off our path!  The bible says that all things work together for good to those who love Him.  And its true.  If we take a wrong turn, He is there to teach us something or change us in some way that is for our good. And He is always there to pick us up and put us back on the path that we are supposed to be on.