I love movies that are complex and morally ambiguous– movies that require me to figure out where I stand in a story where there are no clear answers and only hard questions.  I am liking less and less movies that are complicated and ambiguous in a way that is frustrating and requires me to puzzle out the logistics of a situation rather than consider the essential humanity (or inhumanity) of a character.

So I was worried The Adjustment Bureau was a movie in that complicated and logistically ambiguous zone.  In fact, that’s not the case at all.  Although the movie has many flaws, at it’s heart is a hard human question.  Before you read further PLEASE NOTE– SPOILERS below.

The story opens on David Norris (Matt Damon), a young charismatic politician who is losing an election because of a youthful college prank.  A photo resurfaces, makes headline news and destroys his narrow lead .  He retreats to the men’s room in the election night hotel headquarters to practice his concession speech.

Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) is hiding in the men’s room to escape the security guards who threw her out of a wedding she crashed.  Elise overhears David’s muttered speech and urges him to tell the truth instead of repeating the carefully parsed words provided by his pollsters.  The security guards give chase and Elise flees without telling David her name.  David goes on stage, begins delivering the same old speech, then throws away his notes and gives an honest ad hoc speech that launches his next Senate bid.

On his way to work, long after the election, David is supposed to be intercepted and delayed for ten minutes.  Instead, he meets Elise again on the bus.  They emotionally reconnect and she gives him her first name and telephone number.  The delay never happens and David arrives at work on time.

In the office, he witnesses someone being “adjusted.”  There are weird electron wands, men in futuristic Swat Team attire and other mysterious men in hats and somber grey suits.  David is shocked, runs and is chased down. A door in the top-floor office opens and suddenly he is in a locked underground parking garage.

When he is captured in the garage David learns about the adjustment bureau.  The non-human bureau (beings with special powers) keeps people and situations “on plan.”  This plan is created by the “chairman.” According to the plan, David was supposed to meet Elise once, be inspired to give his speech and then lose track of her.  Instead, by chance and administrative screw-up they reconnect.

David is told he will win his next election and four more.  He may never mention the existence of the bureau to any one ever and he must forget about Elise. A bureau member destroys her phone number.  David tries to remember the number later.  Another bureau member appears and David is told that even if he does remember the number, his call will be dropped, the phone will be busy or the number will have changed.

David refuses to give up.  He rides the same bus route (where he met Elise) at the same time every day for three years.  He is constantly searching for her wherever his day takes him.  One day, he finally spots her walking along the sidewalk parallel to the bus route.  David jumps off the bus and tells her he was mugged, his wallet taken and her number was destroyed.  He’s tried Google and everything he could think of but couldn’t locate her.

It turns out Elise founded a small dance company and was engaged to her brilliant choreographer.  She broke off the engagement after she met David. The two are in love and believe they are meant to be together.  More chases and more revelations about the adjustment bureau ensue.

The story boils down to this– David is told he will be president and will be in a position to do much good, but only if he lets go of Elise.  Elise will become a famous dancer and an important choreographer, but only if she and David don’t reconnect.  If they stay together, she will wind up teaching dance to six year olds in a small studio somewhere.  By pursuing her, David will not just destroy his dreams but hers as well.  David leaves Elise in the hospital, where she is recovering from a sprained ankle.  David watched her dance and she fell (to prove the bureau’s point).

Fast forward, David is in the final leg of his flourishing Senate campaign.  He is so far ahead even he can’t screw up his lead.  Then David reads in the paper that Elise is set to marry her previous fiancee, the choreographer.   David abandons he campaign stop and rushes to Elise.

One of the bureau members takes pity on David and explains he was told a half truth.  David finds out that the death of his father and brother were orchestrated by the bureau to create an emptiness in him, a hole that David kept trying to fill by public applause and the warmth of the political limelight. The real reason the bureau wants to keep David and Elise apart is that if they have each other, they will have “enough.” Their emptiness will be filled and they won’t have to substitute the drive for material, political or artistic success for love.

Much has been written about who the Adjustment Bureau is– are they angels and is the “chariman” God?  Let’s look at what the bureau does–  it creates a hunger in people that can be directed to fulfill the bureau’s purpose.  The adjustment team dangles the promise of doing good in front of David when, in order to win, David goes back to his same campaign manger and presumably the same or better pollsters.  David is taught to be just authentic enough to convince people to vote for him.  A few good works will be buried in a mountain of compromises.  The bureau dangles the promise of fame to Elise but the price is an unhappy loveless marriage.  (The fiancee loves her but she is deeply unhappy about marrying him).  That sounds very much like the “glamor of evil.”

The bureau uses a time-proven strategy fueled by fear– fear of not having enough, not being enough or not leaving enough of a legacy. It tries to convince David that political power (even though he knows he is the bureau’s puppet) is worth more than love.  It argues that teaching dance to six year olds is a failure and is too high a cost to pay for love and commitment.   The bureau fears a love that is so strong and so fulfilling that it is “enough.”  They cannot allow a love that is so satisfying that it leaves no desperate hunger left to fill.  The bureau offers the choice between love and fear.

How much is “enough” for me? How much is contentment, gratitude and balance worth in my life?  How fast do I have to run?  What would happen if I slowed down?  Am I fueled by fear- not having enough, not being enough, not leaving enough behind?  Or am I fueled by love– being with the people I love and doing only those projects I love?

It’s strange how all four of these randomly selected movies, movies I didn’t know all that much about, all seem to have something profound to say about this Lenten journey.

DAY ONE – RANGO – IS HERE

DAY TWO – DOGTOOTH – IS HERE

DAY THREE – THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW – IS HERE

In my view of things The Adjustment Bureau is a Power of Ambition movie.  As such it asks the question:  What is the meaning of success?  Outward trappings, prestige, position, popularity, status and worldly achievement?  Or real relationships, authenticity and honest self-assessment?

The excellent film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela is a great study in Power of Conscience leadership.

The Power of Conscience character leads by showing fairness, firmness, consistency, justice and providing a good example.  These leaders believe that they have responsibility for others and a duty to protect the rights of all.  They are particularly sensitive to those who are disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disabled or unable to fight for themselves.  When he defeated the white Afrikaners politically he felt bound to protect their rights and interests as well.  These characters believe that equality and the rule of law is humankind’s salvation.

Power of Conscience leaders tell potential supporters: “Follow me.  I know what’s right.  I will be just.  I will be fair.  I will be responsible.”  They argue:  “Come along and fight the good fight.  Do what is right.  Justice will prevail.  Don’t argue.  I know the right path to take.”

The insistence that they know what is right can get these leaders into trouble with supporters.   This scene in Invictus, illustrates Power of Conscience leadership philosophy very succinctly.

As in Invictus, Power of Conscience characters tend to personalize their work, making their mission to improve the world an inseparable part of their own identity.  In life, Mandela has said:  “The struggle IS my life.”

An unwillingness to compromise on moral ground is the hallmark of these leaders.  In life, Mandela never compromised his principles to avoid punishment.  He refused several opportunities to get out of jail, which required him to recant or renounce one of his stands on justice or equal rights.

The best Power of Conscience leaders are “servant leaders” who have  the humility to serve the greater good of others. Power of Conscience leaders teach their followers to lead by example and to be of service themselves.  This is illustrated in a wonderful scene with Matt Damon, playing Springboks captain Francois Pienaar, where the two men talk of leading by example.  Mandela poses the essential Power of Conscience question, “How do you inspire a people to be better than they think they are?”

Improving themselves, others and the world at large is of paramount importance to Power of Conscience characters.  They are disciplined, principled and challenge others to take the moral high-ground. In life, Mandela has said, “The time is always ripe to do right.”

I found the fevered unraveling of Matt Damon’s character and his deceptions and lies fascinating to watch.  There are no big actions sequences, no shoot-outs and no chase scenes.  If you come to the theater looking for an action-packed thriller like the Bourne series or the sharp witty seriousness of whistler-blower  Erin Brockovich you will be disappointed.  SEE THE TRAILER IN VIDEOS

This is a meticulous character study about the bland banality of corporate greed, the endless self-justification of scheming executives and the deluded self-seeking that’s eating away at the American Dream.   The upbeat jangle of Marvin Hamlisch’s insistently perky elevator music underscores Whitacre’s deluded optimism.  Steven Soderbergh deliciously deadpan comedy is a brilliant, subtle and painfully funny expose of the empty calories (literally and metaphorically) that’s been making America both overfed and undernourished at the same time.

Damon’s character is biochemist and ADM Division President, Mark Whitacre, the highest-ranking corporate official in U.S. history to expose wrong-doing in his own company.  Whitacre sets off a massive FBI investigation into a global price-fixing conspiracy filled with secret meetings, concealed taping, wire taps, pay-offs and laundered money in Swiss and Bermuda off-shore accounts.

The object of all this intrigue is lysine, a sweet corn-based food additive, that is in nearly everything we eat or drink.  As the movie opens, Whitacer glowingly describes the many lucrative uses of  his company’s products (“corn goes in one end, profit comes out the other”).  When a virus derails the company’s production of  lysine, Whitacere is forced to come up with a solution fast.

He lies and tells management there’s a mole in the company, a corporate saboteur from a Japanese rival who wants a payoff to stop injecting the virus into the production line. Whitacre is shocked when the company calls in the FBI. Special Agents Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Bob Herndon (Joel McHale), catch Whitacre in the lie about the mole and the fun begins as Whitacre spins an even bigger story.  He accuses ADM of fixing prices and divvying up the market for the corn-based food additive by ADM and other international corporate giants.

Whitacre begins an increasingly bizarre journey where lie enfolds lie.  The dorky but puppy dog charming scientist with the floppy pompadour toupee likens his situation in ADM to Tom Cruise in The Firm.  It’s an apt, if over-weaning, comparison to another Power of Ambition character.  An even closer movie comparison would be to Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, a movie that also explores dark and twisted side of the Power of Ambition character.

Like Ripley, Mark Whitacre is a bland but eager to please guy who is obsessed with being liked and inflating his own importance.  Whitacre believes he should be running ADM and uses the price-fixing conspiracy to oust his superiors. He is obsessed with assessing the relative friendliness of everyone he meets.  Despite his double-dealings, greed and moral transgressions he believes that he is one of the “good guys” and his many “good friends” at ADM will welcome him into the top spot after he has taken most of the company management down.  He lies about a key biographical fact because of a study about personal likeablity. He justifies every twisted manipulation of the truth or of others with an incessant internal dialogue filled with odd facts, off-kilter observations and self-promoting rationalizations.

Like all Power of Ambition characters Whitacre is exceptionally adept at self-justification and at distracting himself from his own crimes and ethical short-comings.   Always the eternal optimist Whitacre enthuses, “There are so many really nice people in the world.” even as his web of deception is unraveling around him and one last lie earns him three times the prison sentence the other executives face.

A character driven by the Power of Ambition is a staple of American movies.  This Character Type can be a hardworking, eager, charming optimist with a “can-do” spirit (Tom Cruise as the title character in Jerry Maguire)—or a lying, manipulative, backstabbing striver who will do anything to get ahead in life (Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington in All About Eve).  Jim Carrey in Liar Liar is another comedic version of the type.

Power of Ambition characters can be aspirational characters who want to rise from a lowly station to a more exalted one. Or they can be prostitutes, frauds, fakers or con artists, always on the hustle. In either case, their personal vanity, status, popularity and social importance is key to these characters sense of self.

SEE THE TRAILER IN VIDEOS