“The fates lead who will – him that won’t…they drag.”

–Seneca

 I am asking you to look into your soul.  Do you believe that your fate is decided, or do you believe you are master of your own future?  While you ponder that, let me tell you about a movie called The Adjustment Bureau. 

It begins with a politician losing an election.  His name is David Norris, and is played by Matt Damon.   Just an hour before he is to face the press he is practicing his concession speech in the men’s bathroom at the hotel.  He quickly realizes he is not alone for in one of the stalls is an intriguing British woman named Elise played by Emily Blunt.   OK, slightly embarrassing, most women would excuse themselves and head for the exit, but this is Matt Damon…no sorry…a very recognizable politician.  Just imagine you met John Kennedy, maybe you would stick around and have a small chitchat.  Except in the space of one small conversation these two go right for a kiss.  There is an immediate, undeniable connection. 

She can ‘t stick around, it seems she has some hotel security people looking for her.  She crashed a wedding.  Can you really get jail time for crashing a wedding?  He has to give his speech.  The two separate, never to meet again.

Not likely.

Months later someone is hanging outside his apartment.  They are watching him.  Something is very important about David Norris spilling his coffee.  It seems there is a group of people running about town called The Adjustment Bureau; these guys though keeping time and the universe in line are just slightly out of synch with everyone else.  Their attire with 1960 brook brother suits and hats are right out of a men’s catalog of the era.  Well, that’s OK, name one government agency that isn’t just a little out of step with the people they serve.

The guy assigned to his case is Harry Mitchell (Anthony Mackie) and has been a little overworked lately.  He is to meet up with Norris on the street, cause him to spill his coffee, and then cause a ripple of effects in the space / time continuum.  I don’t know if it’s really the space / time continuum but I just like saying it.

He falls asleep in a park outside his apartment, and somehow Norris gets by him.  Well, it really must important that Norris spills his coffee for Mitchell runs six blocks to try to catch the bus, and for his trouble gets hit by a car.

Norris meets Elise on the bus.  A coincidence, right?  They hit if off and she gives him her phone number. 

Mitchell who has survived his collision with a New York city cab, is made of sterner stuff, and rather than ask for an ambulance he asks for his book that he carries around with him everywhere he goes.  This is like a ‘steam-punk’ ipod, pages like any other book, but has maps that remind me of GPS tracking in real time.

You don't want to mess with these guys. Mitchell is on the left. Notice the book in his hand. I called it a 'steam-punk ipod' but another name is the 'Book of Fate.' The guys in the suits call it the 'Master Plan.'

Norris goes to work, and seems to walk into a conference at the wrong time.  Strange men in dark coats have frozen in time those in the office, and his friend has a machine up against his head that looks like those futuristic Dyson vacuum cleaners with glowing lights attached.  He tries to run for it, he is caught, and thrown through a door into a warehouse where he is held captive and told the state of the universe.

“Your actions are not your own.”

“We control your decisions.”

“You were never supposed to meet that girl.”

What?  Who are you guys?

They burn the telephone number of the girl.  Everything you see has ripples, and talk to the wrong person, go down the wrong street, and it takes you off the master plan.  You see, everyone, at least the important people, have a master plan.  I have one, don’t you? 

After the Adjustment Bureau boys read him the riot act on what his place exactly is in the universe, this is the part where Seneca was absolutely right – he is dragged and literally thrown back into normal life.

“What are you doing on my floor?” his friend asks him having survived his brain manipulation. 

So for the next three years he rides the bus in hopes of seeing the girl again.  Who cares if some guys in anachronistic clothing kidnaps you and tells you to lay off.  True love is true love, right?

Half way through the film the impression of a Twilight Zone episode wore off, and I slowly realized that these guys were more on a mythological level, than some strange governmental agency that had weird office attire.

I caught on to them when Norris asked, “What are you?”

And the answer he got was kind of obscure.   In real life, obscure answers, under the circumstances, would not have cut it.   If I was in the warehouse, and being held against my will, and these guys wanted me to accept the biggest ‘fish story’ I  had ever heard,  I would be peppering them with the following questions.

“Are you aliens?”

“Are you a government agency?”

“Are you immortal?”

OK, the girl is important, but if someone opens up the universe for you I would be trying to find out more.  In fact, the only question he seems to ask was, “Are you angels?”

"What do you mean its not part of the master plan?"

This is the spot where the movie jumps into Magic Realism, a sort of a genre where everything seems normal but accepts the bizarre as every day.  For instance, imagine you are in a world where there are no doctors, but only wizards.   In this reality we have guys who dress out of the TV show Madmen, and have yet graduated their record keeping to computers.  These guys can live a long time, survive getting hit by a car, and have powers to cause things to move (a useful power when you want someone to spill their coffee, or make someone trip just at the right time).  What’s more they can walk through doors and be transported like something out of Star Trek to a different location.  These guys aren’t agents for a government agency.  These guys aren’t aliens.  These guys are…wait for it…are the fates.

  The idea of man’s destiny being pre-ordained is as old as man himself.  I predict that many of you reading this article will not admit this to yourself, or actually belief openly that your future is pre-ordained.   This is the connection you have with the ancient Romans, even with the ancient Greeks.  We are not that different.  And I predict, if you sit yourself down tonight, and really think about it, there have been times in your life that you thought you were destined for something greater.  If there are times that you wondered what it would be like to be a Roman, well you actually share something with them on a basic gut level.  

Fate is another way to talk of destiny, the belief in a predetermined future.  How many lovers have said or even thought, “We were meant to be together” like it was laid out…already decided.  How many biographers have written, “He was destined for greatest.”  Even though his or her success may have been based on a series of chances based on a mathematical mountain of predetermined courses.  Words of fate and destiny are interwoven in our language, and even analogies are made with the fibers of

The Fates

our own clothing.  Life is talked about as if it is spun from a loom, that life itself is a thread spun and maintained by three Greek goddesses:  Lashesis who decides the length of your life, Clotho who spins it out, and Atropos who will sever the thread at the appointed hour.    These were called the Moirae, the fates.  There were the white robed personifications of destiny.  Don’t tell me you never heard of ‘life as a tapestry’, and what tapestry is not composed of threads?  Your life is composed of many threads; these are the intersections of people’s life’s that intersect with yours.      

Yes, I admit it.  I did not catch on who these guys were until the middle of the movie.

It is then the movie began to make real sense.  What the Adjustment Bureau is really about is tempting the fates.  What would man be if he didn’t try to strike out on his own?  It is in our nature to go for something more, something different.  We tempt the fates by applying for that job we know we don’t have any chance to get; we tempt the fates by asking that pretty girl out for a date.  Norris wants happiness, and he wants ‘his thread’ to intersect with Elise.  Norris has a great destiny, so has Elise, but together those destinies may be rewritten. 

 “Men at some time are masters of their fates.  The fault, dear Brutis, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…”

– William Shakespeare