Fridae

There’s something about Philip K Dick that inspires Hollywood to turn his short stories into films. It’s not about how he was a sci-fi visionary, but how the writer and his fiction serve as a window to 1960—70s America. This year’s The Adjustment Bureau (an upgrade from “The Adjustment Team”) might be the best film adaptation of this author’s work in a long time, factoring in Hollywood’s penchant for creatively rewriting Dick’s material in the print-to-screen process.

From the film’s trailer, you will know that Matt Damon plays a politician who falls in love with Emily Blunt. Their love is something that the shadowy “Adjustment Bureau” and its seemingly omniscient “agents” (who traverse vast distances via magical doors!) will not allow because it does not fit “the plan” allotted for both of them and the entire world. Will love and free will triumph?

Granted, “The Adjustment Team” did not even have a politician, a ballerina, or even a love story. But let’s not quibble – The Adjustment Bureau is by far the most representative of Philip K Dick’s works. Is there a vast conspiracy theory? Check! Does the protagonist suddenly see the world as it truly is, without the veil of human perception to shield his eyes? Check! Remember, the author was a heavily medicated paranoid schizophrenic! Does the conspiracy involve an almost omnipotent force? Is it God and his angels dressed up as aliens (or vice versa)? Check! Remember, Philip K Dick was after all living in an era where the boundary between religion and science was starting to blur! I dare you Philip K Dick fans to play a drinking game with this movie!

As far as science fiction films go, The Adjustment Bureau comes across as painfully limited in originality, though it isn’t the first to be shoehorned into a Love Conquers All ending. The Adjustment Bureau is the smartest and most entertaining primer to the philosophy and ideas of Philip K Dick and does this job far better than a documentary called The Gospel According to Philip K Dick.