My hopes were not high for The Adjustment Bureau after the studio had delayed its release for several months. That can be the telltale marker of a movie disaster. But not this time – The Adjustment Bureau is a first rate love story embedded in the action thriller genre. A couple meet by chance and are drawn together – only to have scary guys in hats try to enforce different destinies for them.
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have excellent chemistry, and the screenplay by director George Nolfi is smart and inventive. Nolfi also wrote the smart and inventive screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum. I’m certainly looking forward to his next project.
The supporting players – Terence Stamp, Anthony Mackie and John Slattery – are excellent.
Given the scarcity of them these days, it must be pretty hard to write a smart and authentic romance. So all the more credit to Nolfi, and to Damon and Blunt for pulling it off.