Science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick’s later work was marked by Gnostic tendencies, and The Adjustment Bureau, loosely inspired by Dick’s 1954 short story “The Adjustment Team” could easily have been another Gnostic-colored Hollywood parable akin to The Matrix and The Truman Show. In these movies, the hero slowly awakens to the realization that the known world is a facade engineered by a malevolent false creator, and ultimately throws off his shackles, rebelling against the false authority and achieving freedom from the constraints of this world.
Instead, writer-director George Nolfi, a philosophy major who studied at Princeton and Oxford, uses Dick’s fantasy conceit of a team of superhuman agents intervening in human affairs to noodle concepts of fate, free will, chance, Providence and theodicy in a tale of star-crossed lovers appealingly played by Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Part Hollywood romance, part paranoia thriller, The Adjustment Bureau is an enjoyable romp in large part on the strength of Damon and Blunt’s likability and chemistry — qualities notably absent in recent star vehicles like The Tourist and Knight and Day.
Damon plays David Norris, a youthful U.S. senator who we find early in the film suffering a setback due to impulsively cheeky bad behavior. Blunt is Elise, whom David improbably meets while polishing his concession speech in the men’s room at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Elise initially comes off as what critic Nathan Rabin labeled a “manic pixie dream girl” — i.e., a bubbly, flirty young thing who exists solely to awaken the hero to life’s mysteries and adventures — but becomes something more interesting as the film goes on.
In fact, from Elise’s point of view, it’s David who’s the “manic pixie dream boy,” mysteriously popping in and out of her life, tantalizing her with the possibility of starry-eyed romantic fulfillment before vanishing and leaving her contemplating sensible, level-headed life decisions that would be perfectly rewarding if it weren’t for the lingering hope for something more.
What keeps pushing David and Elise apart — despite the strong connection they feel, almost as if they were made for each other — is the Adjustment Bureau, a grimly efficient force of covert agents in fedoras (notably including Anthony Mackie, John Slattery and Terence Stamp) whose prime directive is to facilitate the Plan. The Plan dictates the life path of everyone on earth, particularly influential people like Norris whose actions have the most impact on the broader goals of the bureau — goals that, it must be said, benefit all mankind, even if the Agents occasionally ride roughshod over human freedom and individual happiness.
Usually their “adjustments” are mechanical: One day, the theory goes, you spill your coffee and miss your bus, and your day takes a completely different path that changes the whole course of your life. Do our lives really hinge on such vagaries? Who can doubt it?
Because we believe that our lives are meaningful, we resist the notion that the stuff of which they are made is contingent on blind chance. Fate, Providence, predestination —somehow there is a meaningful pattern in which the paths of our lives make sense.
The Adjustment Bureau plays with all these ideas, and the indeterminacy of its approach, which some might find indecisive or woolly-minded, seems to me the secret of the film’s success. Instead of spelling out the answers, Nolfi raises the questions, inviting viewers to contemplate the possibilities in light of their own beliefs or doubts.
The Adjustment Bureau obviously suggests religious themes. The Agents overtly resemble the angelic protagonists of Wings of Desire — as well as the Agents of The Matrix; are they angels, and, if so, how benevolent are they? One of them tells David that they’ve been called angels, but they’re “more like case workers.”
More importantly, is the mysterious Chairman, the author of the Plan, God? He (or she) is obviously a God figure, though it might be possible to interpret him (or her) as a powerful intelligence akin to, variously, the planetary oyeresu spirits of C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, the mysterious alien benefactors of humanity in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a Gnostic demiurge figure, a cosmic equivalent to The Truman Show’s Christof.
Are the Chairman and the Plan benevolent or oppressive? If the latter, then clearly on some level we have a Gnostic parable — and for much of the film there seems to be a case for this reading. The Agents are broadly concerned with mankind’s development and progress, but neither they nor the Plan seems much concerned with the good of individual men and women.
If the Plan as the Agents know it is equivalent to God’s will, then the divinity of this film is like Alexander Pope’s “first Almighty Cause” who “acts not by partial but by general laws.” This is a providence stripped of omniscience and omnibenevolence — a managerial god (as Lewis argues in Prayer: Letters to Malcolm) who may be wiser than everyone else but falls infinitely short of the Absolute of Christian belief and even Greek philosophy.
Nolfi, though, runs interference on this hypothesis, suggesting that even the Agents’ perspectives are limited, some more than others, and the Plan as they know it may or may not converge with the Chairman’s ultimate intentions. There are repeated suggestions that, as David spends most of the film chafing at the restrictions of the Plan and pushing back against the Agents determined to keep him from Elise, the Chairman may secretly be on David’s side, not the Agents’. Why did David catch the bus he was meant to miss? Why did the Agents fail to prevent him? They think it was chance, but the movie suggests another possibility.
“This can’t be wrong,” David says at one point, meaning his desire to be with Elise. David may be willing to defy the Plan, but some concept of right and wrong is still in view; his position is not “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” It’s also worth noting that David does note in passing that it would be different if Elise were married; that feeling of romantic destiny, that two people were “meant to be” together, has often not scrupled at marital obstacles and has been used to justify adultery, abandonment and divorce.
In the end, the film’s biggest theological limitation is that the Chairman’s most important attribute, for the purposes of the story at least, is whatever he (or she) thinks of David and Elise’s love. The Chairman may be an agent of or an obstacle to human happiness; there is no indication that he might be the source and goal of human happiness — of all possible happiness of all possible creatures in all possible universes.
Like Damon’s recent Hereafter, which was consumed with the question of an afterlife but ignored the question of God pretty much completely, The Adjustment Bureau asks secondary questions — while leaving the biggest question of all off the radar. I enjoyed The Adjustment Bureau a lot more than Hereafter, though. In principle, I’d like to watch both movies again and think about them some more — but, practically speaking, I don’t think I’ll ever feel like watching Hereafter again, which is not how I feel about The Adjustment Bureau.
Steven D. Greydanus is editor and chief critic at Decent Films. He also blogs at NCRegister.com.
CONTENT ADVISORY: A car crash and some brief roughness; limited sensuality, including a nonmarital bedroom scene (nothing explicit); some language, including a curse and one obscenity; theological ambiguities. Mature viewing.
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What if there is no Free Will? I have often said that, and can point to certain scriptures that lead me to believe that, but then you get into these never-ending apologetic blah blahs. PKD wrote “A Scanner Darkly”, “Valis”, and “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”. He also wrote the stories that were the basis for “Total Recall”, “Minority Report”, “Blade Runner” which have similar themes as The Adjustment Bureau.
@ Titus: The movie doesn’t actually suggest that there is no free will—though it does suggest that the scope of human freedom is much more constrained than most people suppose, which I think is accurate. Both scripture and Church teaching insist on the reality of human freedom, but freedom is weakened by original sin and concupiscence.
Two of the three Dick works you mention date to after he became interested in Gnosticism in the mid-1970s. Three Stigmata came earlier although it represents the beginnings of Dick’s explicitly religious works; “The Adjustment Team” reflects an earlier stage in Dick’s thought.
See also my take on The Adjustment Bureau in 30 Seconds!
“Three Stigmata” is an interesting book whose ending is contained in its prologue. But his masterpiece is “The Man in the High Castle” where creativity, courage, and love can shift people across alternate universes.
You saw The Truman Show as gnostic? Interesting. I equated Christof not with Demiurge, but Satan. Thus, Truman’s escape is not from a sinful material world into a pure spiritual one(gnosticism), it is from a prison of lies and deceptions set by the devil to try and keep him from discovering the Truth (notice his sailboat is named the Santa Maria).
“Manic Pixie Dream Boy” hmmm, I wonder if there are enough other examples to justify making this a trope yet. It would need a manlier name though.
The Truman Show is definitely Gnostic. Has Satan ever pretended to be the Creator of this world? I don’t believe so, though the Demiurge certainly did, according to Gnostic myth. And of course, Christof explicitly calls himself the “creator” of Truman’s world.
(Just wondering: what do you think the significance of “Santa Maria” is? Is it a reference to the Virgin Mary, or is it perhaps a reference to Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America, which is often cited as one of the key events that led the world out of the (church-dominated) medieval era and into the (increasingly secular) modern era?)
As for “manic pixie dream boy”, I believe it’s a spin on the term “manic pixie dream girl”, which Nathan Rabin coined in January 2007 to describe certain characters played by Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman; the term has since been applied to Zooey Deschanel and possibly others, as well.
I think The Truman Show resonates strikingly with Gnosticism, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “clearly Gnostic.” The big, obvious disanalogy is that Gnosticism posits a false world holding all mankind in the grip of illusion, so that the Gnostic is the rare enlightened individual who wakes up to the fact that the whole world is asleep. In The Truman Show, by contest, Truman is the only prisoner of the illusion.
On that level, The Truman Show resonates less with Gnosticism than solipsism and the problem of other minds. In a way, the two worldviews are almost antitheses, if not opposites. Gnosticism asks: What if the world is a veil of illusion pulled over the eyes of all humanity, and I’m one of the few that realizes it? Solipsism asks: What if the whole world is a veil of illusion pulled over my eyes, and my condition of deception is absolutely unique?
Just a general remark (unrelated to the film in question): treating the world as a worthless sham is not necessarily Gnostic. The ancient and deeply Christian attitude known as the “contemptus mundi” does exactly that. We also used to have the traditional triad of the enemies - the world, the flesh and the devil, and we used to call the world “a valley of tears”. This pragmatic perspective has been seriously muddled - to the detriment of ascetic theology and the “via negativa” - by the post-Vatican II intoxication with the world, with well-known results. Perhaps it is time to bring it back? The current shape of the world seems to encourage such correction.
This is all fantasy and gets R. Eberts good marks because if he put to many thumbs down then he would be out of work. Thats right “it’s a job”. I wonder how well off we would all be if we spent half as much time reading and watching religious movies and books approved by the Vatican? If we were to spend our lives living our religion there would be little time to watch make believe. We only make them rich while we sink further into the depths of the evil one. But that seems to be the way of many who have no life at all. It also explains why so many avoid confession these days. They are lost in the make believe world…..God forgive them…..
@ Hieronymus: For the sake of clarity, the contemptus mundi refers not to contempt for the cosmos created by God, which God pronounces “very good” and which is destined to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:19-22), but to contempt for the world of temporal concerns, the world of human entanglements, responsibilities, respect, ambition, and so forth.
Furthermore, Pope Benedict writes in Spe Salvi that even in monasteries, commonly thought to be “places of flight from the world (contemptus mundi),” monks labor, according to Bernard of Clairvaux, “for the whole Church and hence also for the world.” So a Christian contemptus mundi must be balanced by a Christian love for the world (amor pro mundum): “For God so loved the world…”
@ Fr. John: Have you ever read Pope Pius XII’s 1955 addresses to representatives of the Italian film industry? Among other things, the Pope expresses admiration for the cinema’s ability to “transfer the spectator” to “imaginary” or “unreal” worlds. I’m not sure why you are so disparaging about “fantasy” and “make believe,” or whether you would be equally disparaging of the Christian fantasy of writers like Tolkien or Lewis, but I can’t see that your tendencies here find much purchase in magisterial thought. Nor do I see any basis whatsoever for connecting fantasy storytelling to neglect of the sacrament of confession—that seems as imaginary as the worlds you apparently disparage.
Your speculations about Roger Ebert’s motivations, if I understand your meaning, seem to me (forgive me) unworthy of a Christian, not to mention utterly incredible. It is beyond absurd and unworthy to suppose that Roger Ebert—of all people—is at this stage in his life and career worried about losing his job if he gives a thumbs down to too many films. Ebert can do whatever the heck he wants. He has nothing to prove to anyone. But perhaps I have misunderstood; I hope so.
@Steven D. Greydanus,
“For the sake of clarity, the contemptus mundi refers not to contempt for the cosmos created by God, etc.”
As you can see from my entire posting - which, I believe, is clear enough - I have never thought (or said) otherwise. This is precisely why I have contrasted this point of view with Gnosticism which rejects the natural world “in toto” as made by the evil Demiurge.
@ Hieronymus: I wasn’t correcting you. I said “for the sake of clarity.” I wanted to make the point as clear as possible for everyone’s benefit. If I had been going to challenge you, it would have been on the notion of “well-known results” of what you call the “post-Vatican II intoxication with the world.” But I decided to let that pass. Cheers.
@Steven D. Greydanus,
I did not consider your reply a challenge but I still believe that my text was clear enough. As for disputing the “post-Vatican II intoxication with the world”, I would certainly like to know your explanation of the rapid and wholesale deterioration of the Church, dramatic slump in vocations, massive exodus of priests, monks and nuns, dumbing down of the liturgy, and finally the tsunami of sexual abuse - to name just a few disasters - right after the council. If these were not the results of “opening the windows to the world”, I really don’t know what they were…
@Peter T Chattaway: OK, here is how I saw the symbolism:
•Christof=satanic figure
•The Island=secular worldview promoted by satan that tries to keep Truman from finding the Truth. Whenever Truman tries to learn the Truth, Christof sends either his “wife” or his “friend” to distract him with sex/beer.
•The Real World=the Truth. Thus, the two physical locations do not symbolize two worlds, but rather two worldviews. True-man must abandon the false worldview and find the true one. For me then, the “Santa Maria” is Mary helping Truman find the Truth(Jesus).
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I knew about Manic Pixie Dream Girl from TvTropes rather than film criticism, hence I was wondering if MPDBoys showed up enough in fiction to justify making it a spear counterpart trope. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManicPixieDreamGirl
Steve: I don’t think the number of people deceived by the Demiurge is either here or there, as far as the Gnostic allegory is concerned. Adam was just as deceived in his isolation as the rest of us are in our multitudes, from the Gnostic point of view. It would be interesting to know what might have become of The Truman Show (the show-within-the-movie, that is) if Truman had had children, to say nothing of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but obviously, it never got that far.
Peter: The point is not just the number of people who are deceived. The point is that Truman believes his condition is fundamentally the same as everyone else in his world, when in reality his condition is absolutely unique and everyone except him is in on it. The fundamental philosophical impetus here is not Gnostic, but solipsistic; the driving question is fundamentally “How do I know that I’m not the only one? How do I know that all these people who seem to be just like me are anything like me at all?” Very different from Gnosticism.
No, the point is the number of people who, like me, were deceived by the marketers of this movie who advertised it as a sci-fi thriller. Wrapping themselves in the robes of their fictitious character, “The Chairman”, they denied movie-goers the “free will” to avoid such an overtly religious claptrap of a movie. An utter waste of $10 unless you enjoy being sucker-punched.
Interesting info about Dick and Gnosticism—I haven’t read much by him, but the only novel of his I read (The Man in the High Castle) was hugely Gnostic. Intersting, but annoying at the same time. I didn’t realize it was a theme in his work.
I thought The Truman Show was a great movie but repellantly Gnostic. I have since read people like the commenter here who thought it was very Christian, but it struck me as obviously and troublingly Gnostic from the start. What happened to Truman after he got out? It didn’t matter… getting out was the whole point. But like many good films, it is endless food for thought.
I’m still not believing in Free Will.
Looking out into space there is a lot hydrogen gas balls with gas giants circling them, but the universe is still 99% empty. Then there is the atom, which surprised scietist when they realized they are 99% empty. Maybe I’m wrong, but didn’t the gnostics call the universe, the Emptiness? aka the Kenoma?
I had an experience during prayer / meditation where I perceived that we were in a prison, so a good catholic prayer can bring about some heavy gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was more like a water jail of our minds than a computer hookup though. I don’t exist in my body, I’m projecting through the brain like a transmitter. Any one else learn this from the Holy Spirit? She’s far more chatty than I was led to believe.
Oh, on the sexual abuse issue. I don’t like to talk about it, but considering that the word Queerester, or choir boy goes back a few hundred years. I say “Plus Ca Change”. There is no new arguement or social phenomenon under the sun. Vatican two, Smatican sshmu.
WARNING—SPOILER INCLUDED WITHIN—Steven: I just saw “The Adjustment Bureau,” and I agree with you in that the film was generally enjoyable, and that there certainly were positive ideals illustrated by the characters, e.g., the most obvious being that Norris, even though fully aware that loving Elise could jeopardize his political career, in the end presses forward chosing her over his own seemingly selfish, self-aggrandizing motives. Notwithstanding that tribute to romantic love, I can’t help but conclude that the ultimate message of this movie is resoundingly wrong, and, well, postmodern: People don’t submit to God’s will; instead, God submits to theirs. Norris’ love—even, as I noted above, a somewhat self-sacrificial love, and in that sense otherwise very good—isn’t the total self-denying love that is, if you will “true love.” Completely loving Elise would entail accepting and suffering through their leading separate lives, separate lives that movie suggests are Divinely ordained. Being in the rather unusual position of knowing exactly of what God’s plan consists (or better put in this case, does not consist), the ideal Christian response would be for Norris to submit to God’s will: I love you so much that I am willing to accept God’s plan and exit your life so that God can do with you as He wills; I don’t understand why God has arranged the Plan in that particular way, but I trust God nonetheless. But Norris can’t accept that. Instead, he construes the pain of being separated from Elise as an indication that (and the movie doesn’t quite spell this part out) either the adjusters are wrong, or perhaps, even God is wrong. That is ironic, because at the end of the film, the whole ordeal is described as a test. The egocentric postmodern outlook would say he passed it, but from a Christian standpoint, he clearly flunked it by persisting with his desires over God’s.
I would take serious pause to point out and duly note the risky hubris of one commentator in his dangerous presumption at even venturing anything close to being ableknow the limits of Satan’s ability to deceive those without spiritual discernment. He asks us the question “has Satan ever posed as the creator of this world?” in the negative, as if he knows the deceptive powers of the Father of lies himself. Ask certain devout Satanists who it is that created this world. One need not even guess at the answer. Gnosticism is heresy because it is systematic untruth posited as Gnosis or Divine-Knowing and it is like all good forms of deception Truth corrupted by being mixed with Untruth, and many of the so-called “Gnostic Scriptures” portray Lucifer as the original Creator of this world with the Christian God as usurper.. There are too many gnostic themes Christians would do well to acquaint themselves with some of which do not designate this world as the sole creation of, (“Ialdoboath”), or the “Demiurge” as being none other than God the Father. And to the human mind left to itself, who or what Satan presents himself as would be near infinite.
OMG, do you see whats happening in Syria? Regardless of a brutal government crackdown, the demonstrations continue
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