Fans of Philip K. Dick's wonderful science fiction don't have a great deal of luck when it comes to movie adaptations of his work - perhaps only A Scanner Darkly and Blade Runner come close to capturing the feel and tone of the source material, bringing to the screen vivid worlds in which reality and fantasy, life and artifice are blurred by paranoia and psychosis. Matt Damon stars as David Norris, a congressman who unwittingly stumbles across the work of the adjustment bureau, a mysterious team whose job it is to reconfigure the physical world in order to ensure that "the Plan" isn't deviated from. The Adjustment Bureau - based on a lesser Dick short story Adjustment Team - sits somewhere in the middle when it comes to the quality of adaptation, remaining relatively faithful to the original premise but dropping the ball in style by the final act. Pitting free will against the determinism invoked by a seemingly higher power, The Adjustment Bureau manages to capture the high concept of its source effectively. But the heavy handed love story which runs throughout - as Norris defies Fate in the name of Love, culminating in a sickly sweet kiss on a rooftop overlooking the city - is about as far removed from what Dick intended in his short as you could possibly get. Dick never liked Hollywood-style endings - perhaps it's fortunate that he isn't around to see them liberally applied to his adaptations.
