ITT I overthink movies
So, yesterday I went and saw The Adjustment Bureau. It was entertaining, but also irritating, and I felt irked enough to write a spoilerific post about it. Enjoy!
First, brief recap of the movie. It's set in a world that first appears to be exactly like ours, but in fact under the surface, nobody has any free will, and everything is run by the so-called Adjustment Bureau who have a Plan(tm) for everything and everybody. Nobody knows about this though, and make choices believing that they are choosing freely. In reality however, everything is chosen for them and they have only the illusion of free will.
Towards the middle of the movie, you find out that people really do have free choices in some things, but only irrelevant things, such as what flavor ice cream to eat, how to cut their hair, etc. In any choices larger than that, they are either nudged onto the "right choice" gently (e.g. Person A is supposed to meet Person B on the train at 9am according to the Plan. Person A usually rides the 8am train, though. So an agent from the Adjustment Bureau might cause Person to spill their coffee, or sleep in late, or whatever, and cause Person A to run late and be forced to take the 9am train, thereby causing them to meet Person B as they are "supposed" to.) But sometimes, the gentle nudging thing doesn't work (e.g. CEO Bill is "supposed" to buy millions of dollars of stock for his company, but gets cautious and decides not to buy any), so the Adjusters move on to the Sledgehammer Option, which is to freeze the person and alter their brain so they make the "right" decision.
Our hero, David Norris, is a politician running for Congress. He's giving a speech at some fancy building, and meets a girl, Elise, who is hiding in the Men's Room to avoid security because she crashed a wedding upstairs. They chat each other up in a hilarious scene, and pretty much instantly fall in love. But David isn't supposed to love her, according to the Bureau's Plan, so an agent is sent out to make sure he doesn't see her again. The agent is supposed to spill David's coffee on him so that he is late for his bus, which unbeknownst to David Elise is also riding that day. But, the agent falls asleep. David makes the bus, sees Emily again, and they fall even deeper in love. Then, David goes to the office, where, because his agent is still asleep, he accidentally discovers several agents in the middle of brain-altering his boss in his office. He runs away but is caught.
The Chief Agent, whose real title I forget (and who looks JUST LIKE my poli sci professor), sits David down in a room surrounded by agents and explains to him about the Plan, the Adjustment Bureau, and his total absence of free will. He explains to David that he is not to be with Elise, according to the Plan, and he can either comply with it voluntarily, or the Bureau will not simply alter his brain but will in fact erase his entire personality and turn him into basically a zombiefied robot. I call this the Nuclear Sledgehammer Option. If he tells anybody about the Plan or the Bureau, he will also be Nuclear Sledgehammered/brain erased. David agrees so that they will let him go, but he continues to pursues Elise clandestinely.
He rides the same bus every day for 3 years hoping to see her again, but doesn't. Elise is not aware of the Bureau or anything to do with the agents' interference with their relationship, and thinks he has abandoned her. David's personal agent, who has now been permanently assigned to him because David has proven to be a trouble maker, visits him on the bus once and speaks with him. The agent feels conflicted about the goodness of the Plan, but hopes that giving David more info will get him to follow it voluntarily so the agent won't have to fight his conscience and force David into following it. The agent tells about some of the powers of the Bureau, including the agents' travelling power. They have a network of secret doors throughout the city that act as portals to other doors, allowing them what amounts to instant travel. They can only use the doors if they are wearing their magic hats (seriously). The hats are actually kind of nifty looking, like 1930's gangster hats. The guardian agent (ha) also tells David that the Bureau doesn't have a blank check to do whatever they want, but in fact they have to follow various bureaucratic procedures, and must get special permission from "the Chairman" before they can brain-alter or brain-erase anybody. The Chairman is the one who writes the plan. It is heavily implied that the "Chairman" is God, the Plan is God's plan for everyone's life (in a way more creepy, controlling way than one would normally think), and the Adjustment Bureau agents are his angels or workers. Or enforcers.
By chance, David catches sight of Elise on the street and runs to her. They talk, he explains his 3-year absence by saying that he "lost her phone number" (not even a lie, because the Bureau took it). They go on a date or something, I forget. He tells her about his family all dying before he was 12, and the emptiness inside of him being his motivation to run for office. She tells him about her ex-fiance Adrian, who she broke up with 3 years ago after meeting David, because she realized she loved David more. Aww. She's a dancer (not that kind, perv) in a ballet company, and he goes to see her dance. But first, he is hunted down by the Chief Chief Agent (the Chief Agent's boss, who has now gotten involved because David just won't do what he's supposed to).
David asks the Chief Chief Agent (CCA) what the whole point of the "Plan" is, anyway. The CCA tells him that people used to have free will, but misused it. According to him, they were under the Plan up until the Roman Empire, when the Chairman took away the Plan and let people have free will, but the world promptly went into the Dark Ages. The Chairman took away free will again, gave people the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and then gave free will back. Within a few hundred years World War I and II occurred, and the Chairman took free will away yet again. The CCA says that if people had free will back now, the world would be destroyed. David asks why the Plan calls for him to be apart from Elise, then. The CCA says that it was part of the Plan for him to meet her only one time, because she was a good influence and inspired him, but that he was never supposed to see her again after that. In large doses, she starts being a bad influence. The Plan is for David to become President eventually, which he couldn't do if he were with her (owing to her being a bad influence). He goes on to say that their relationship would not only end David's dreams, but would end Elise's also. Separate from him, she becomes a world famous dancer. With him, she becomes a dance instructor for 6 year olds.
David feels terrible, and decides not to see Elise again because he doesn't want to ruin her dreams. However, he doesn't tell her any of this (because he's afraid of the brain-erase if he tells), and he doesn't try to tell her anything circumspectly (e.g. making up a reason why he can't see her). He simply cuts off all contact. Elise has no idea what happened, and is heartbroken. She does become a famous dancer, and gets back together with her ex-fiance.
Several years pass, and David sees an article in the paper saying that Elise is getting married. David is filled with remorse, and vows to go see her. His guardian agent has always been somewhat skeptical of the goodness of the Plan from the beginning, but has gone along with it up until this point because of fear of punishment from the rest of the Bureau and the Chairman. He sees David's pain, and finally levels with him about the real reason he can't be with Elise. It's not because she's a "bad influence", it's actually because she's "enough" to fill the emptiness inside of him. That emptiness is his main motivation for running for office, and filling it would mean he would lose interest in politics and not fulfill the Plan for him to be President. He says the Chairman sometimes edits the Plan, and in earlier versions of the Plan David WAS supposed to be with Elise (but not in the new Plan). They keep randomly meeting because it's fragments left over from the previous Plans; and that's why they love each so strongly, because in the earlier Plan they were supposed to. But in the new/current Plan, they're not. The agent turns out to have a conscience, and gives David his magic hat so that he can use the secret door network to get to the courthouse where Elise is getting married.
So, he puts on his dashing Capone-style hat, and off he goes! Elise is amazed - and pissed - to see him. He begs her to let him explain, and tells her all about the Bureau, the Plan, the threats of brain altering and erasure, the lack of free will, and all the rest of it. The Bureau agents know that he is using their magic hat and know that he's revealed the secret Plan to another person, and quickly come after him. David tells Elise about the hats and the door network they can use to try to run away, and asks if she's willing to go with him despite the risks. She looks teary eyed and mushily agrees. They tele-door off across the city, one step ahead of the agents.
Finally, they figure out how to tele-door to the actual, physical Bureau of Adjustment building itself. Their plan is to find the Chairman and basically ask him, what the hell man? They hurriedly scramble through the building looking for his office, but are unable to find it, and wind up cornered on a balcony, surrounded by agents. They know the jig is up and that they'll soon be brain-erased, so they hug and give each other a Titanic-style last kiss before they meet their doom. But when they break away from the kiss, all the agents are gone, except for David's guardian agent. David gasps and says "So YOU'RE the Chairman!!1", but the agent laughs and says no, he's not. He claims that the Chairman "meets everybody but they never know it" and that the REAL goal of the Plan (like, genuine for real, not just the keeping-the-earth-from-getting-destroyed thing that the CCA said) is to test people. If you go along with the Plan, you fail the test and you're not ready for free will yet. If you fight the Plan, you pass the test. He says that David proved that nothing would turn him aside from his One True Love, and as a result the Chairman has rewritten the Plan to allow David to do it. Everybody cheers, David and Elise kiss again, the agent gets his hat back, and everyone goes home happy. The End.
Ok, that was the longest "summary" in the history of ever, but I felt the need to write it (I still left out a lot, believe it or not), because the things that irk me are scattered throughout the movie.
We'll start with the Sledgehammer Of Subtlety that the Bureau wielded with such ham-fisted malice. And of course, the Nuclear Sledgehammer in case the regular Sledgehammer wasn't up to the job. Seriously, altering people's brains, and worse yet erasing them? How the hell is anybody supposed to rebel against the Plan - which is the only way to pass the test to get their free will back (even though they really don't; more on that later) - if they're forcibly prevented from it? If they're only nudged here and there they could fight against it, assuming they realized what was going on, which of course nobody does, but at least they'd have a remote chance of success. But BRAIN ERASED and forced down the chosen path? That's a catch-22 and no way to win. Interestingly, this implies that people really do have free will, but are prevented from using it. The Chairman might as well have made a world full of zombies and not even bothered with the illusion of free will. If I were David and had accidentally discovered all this, and some "angels" threatened to completely eradicate my mind, personality, etc if I didn't do what I was told, I would be enraged. If there were truly no way to fight it, I think I'd commit suicide instead of going along with some magic Plan. Fuck their Plan. Man, I'm getting mad just thinking about living in a world like that.
Moving on, the none-too-subtle parallel of God as the Chairman, the Plan as God's Plan, and the Adjustment Bureau agents as his angels. God/"the Chairman" comes off sounding like some kind of OCD control freak, and the angels are more like police enforcers than angels. If there really is a heaven, I sincerely hope that it isn't organized into a bureaucracy because that would be depressing beyond measure. The CCA's argument that the Plan is "necessary" because without it people invariably mess up, is crap. The whole catch-22 of following the plan vs rebelling against it, which I talked about above, means that you can never win. But if people are irredeemable anyway, why bother with giving the illusion of free will? I get that they needed to make it that way to make the movie more dramatic, but it makes it sound like God/the Chairman is just playing a giant game of Sim City. The brain-washing thing just adds to the theological trainwreck.
I know that many people believe that God really does have a divine plan for everything, but I doubt that this type of control-obsessed, manipulative, overbearing "Plan" is what they believe in. I hope not, anyway. I would find living in such a world to be dreadful, degrading, and oppressive. I certainly wouldn't call it divine.
David's decision to break it off cold with Elise after finding out that being together would ruin her dreams really angered me. That irked me more than anything else in the movie, actually. The audacity of David to make Elise's decision for her angered me - the CCA told him that choosing to stay with Elise would make her an elementary dance teacher instead of a world famous dancer, so he broke off their relationship cold turkey. I get that it's sweet that he didn't want to "destroy her dreams" and yadda yadda, but maybe Elise would have chosen to be with him over being a famous dancer. Maybe Elise could have found a way to be famous AND be married to David (of course that would only be possible without a stupid Plan in the way saying you can't). Maybe Elise would have chosen to pursue her dancing career but remained friends with David. Maybe Elise didn't really want to be a famous dancer in the first place; that was the Plan's dream for her, but it might not have been her dream for herself. She may have felt something else (like I don't know, love and happiness) was more important than dancing, had she been given a choice. But of course she never was, because David made that choice for her. He was under threat of brainwashing if he told anybody about the Plan, but he could have tried to sound out her motivations/wishes without revealing the Bureau. E.g. "If you had to choose, would you choose me over your dance career?" "Why, whatever do you mean David?" "I'm just curious. So, would you?" Ok, not very subtle, but come on. He could have at least /tried/.
Elise's character development is somewhat disappointing in the movie. She starts off as a sassy, no-nonsense daredevil, but gradually changes. Once she and David's relationship is established, Elise is treated not as a real, individual character anymore, but only as an adjunct to David, important only for the way that she influences him while her own story and feelings are mostly ignored. That's a shame, because when she was introduced at the beginning she had a vibrant personality, which gradually got bleached as time went on until by the end of the movie the audacious wedding crasher has diminished into a feeble hanger-on.
Anyway, back to the free will thing. At the end, the guardian agent is telling David that because he wouldn't let anything in the prescribed Plan come between him and his love, that he won the game or whatever so now God changed the plan so he can have love after all. He still doesn't have free will! He didn't undo the plan. He didn't get rid of the plan. He didn't remove the plan's influence from his own future or anybody else's. Now he just has a new plan! It's an improvement over the old one, but they're still not free. If the Chairman/agents can admit that their plan was flawed and that it was ultimately a failure, why not do something radical, like, oh I don't know. Get rid of the plan?! But instead, they just made a new plan. Ew.
But even worse than that, David and Elise were never really in love to begin with. They only loved each other because that's what the earlier plans called for. They weren't rebelling against the Plan in a fiery quest for true love and freedom; they were unconsciously trying to follow their pre-programmed original plan instead of the improperly programmed current plan. If the Chairman had changed the original plan sooner, or made the new plan take hold more thoroughly, then the remnants of the old plan would have been completely erased, and without the surviving fragments of it David and Elise would never have "fallen in love". That's the most depressing set-up to a love story ever. You can't even call it a love story because that's like saying that Quicken fell in love with Notepad on your computer. They're just programs and they don't have real feelings or reasoning processes, they just do what they're told, and if you tell them wrong they crash. Except they're stuck on the computer so they can't teleport around with magic hats.
Anyway, back to the free will thing again. I know this is jumping around a lot and growing stupidly lengthy, but whatever, it's my LJ. It comes out in the movie that David's family died before he was 12, and the guardian agent admits at one point that HE killed them. That was part of the plan, to make David all empty-feeling and thus giving him his internal motivation so they could steer him around later. What. The. Hell. The guardian agent admits to David what he did this, but David basically says "Oh, it's ok. It's the Plan. Whatevs." And then never speaks of it again. Personally, I would have been testing whether angels are really immortal. I thought "the Chairman" was supposed to have a good plan, hence the whole taking away of free will because people will screw it up? How is murder, with the intent to make a person depressed and empty, so that they're more easily manipulable, "good" in any way? And then stopping them from true love (or the closest thing they can get to it) so that they remain empty and manipulable? That's a diabolical plan.
Ok, last but not least. The "stick it to the man" aspect of this movie. There's a plan, but the plan is flawed. Fight the plan! That's the message we're supposed to come away with (I think). That's good in theory, but then in the movie itself it doesn't even work out that way. They don't get rid of the plan, they just get a re-write which allows them to have a slight improvement, but everything else is left the same. Arguably, they don't even fight the plan, because this whole time they're only in love because that's how they were supposed to be under the other plan; they're just trying to follow one plan instead of another, not trying to reject the plan altogether. The stick-it-to-the-man message that we're supposed to come away with is an illusion. An unsatisfying, irksome illusion.
And that is all!
First, brief recap of the movie. It's set in a world that first appears to be exactly like ours, but in fact under the surface, nobody has any free will, and everything is run by the so-called Adjustment Bureau who have a Plan(tm) for everything and everybody. Nobody knows about this though, and make choices believing that they are choosing freely. In reality however, everything is chosen for them and they have only the illusion of free will.
Towards the middle of the movie, you find out that people really do have free choices in some things, but only irrelevant things, such as what flavor ice cream to eat, how to cut their hair, etc. In any choices larger than that, they are either nudged onto the "right choice" gently (e.g. Person A is supposed to meet Person B on the train at 9am according to the Plan. Person A usually rides the 8am train, though. So an agent from the Adjustment Bureau might cause Person to spill their coffee, or sleep in late, or whatever, and cause Person A to run late and be forced to take the 9am train, thereby causing them to meet Person B as they are "supposed" to.) But sometimes, the gentle nudging thing doesn't work (e.g. CEO Bill is "supposed" to buy millions of dollars of stock for his company, but gets cautious and decides not to buy any), so the Adjusters move on to the Sledgehammer Option, which is to freeze the person and alter their brain so they make the "right" decision.
Our hero, David Norris, is a politician running for Congress. He's giving a speech at some fancy building, and meets a girl, Elise, who is hiding in the Men's Room to avoid security because she crashed a wedding upstairs. They chat each other up in a hilarious scene, and pretty much instantly fall in love. But David isn't supposed to love her, according to the Bureau's Plan, so an agent is sent out to make sure he doesn't see her again. The agent is supposed to spill David's coffee on him so that he is late for his bus, which unbeknownst to David Elise is also riding that day. But, the agent falls asleep. David makes the bus, sees Emily again, and they fall even deeper in love. Then, David goes to the office, where, because his agent is still asleep, he accidentally discovers several agents in the middle of brain-altering his boss in his office. He runs away but is caught.
The Chief Agent, whose real title I forget (and who looks JUST LIKE my poli sci professor), sits David down in a room surrounded by agents and explains to him about the Plan, the Adjustment Bureau, and his total absence of free will. He explains to David that he is not to be with Elise, according to the Plan, and he can either comply with it voluntarily, or the Bureau will not simply alter his brain but will in fact erase his entire personality and turn him into basically a zombiefied robot. I call this the Nuclear Sledgehammer Option. If he tells anybody about the Plan or the Bureau, he will also be Nuclear Sledgehammered/brain erased. David agrees so that they will let him go, but he continues to pursues Elise clandestinely.
He rides the same bus every day for 3 years hoping to see her again, but doesn't. Elise is not aware of the Bureau or anything to do with the agents' interference with their relationship, and thinks he has abandoned her. David's personal agent, who has now been permanently assigned to him because David has proven to be a trouble maker, visits him on the bus once and speaks with him. The agent feels conflicted about the goodness of the Plan, but hopes that giving David more info will get him to follow it voluntarily so the agent won't have to fight his conscience and force David into following it. The agent tells about some of the powers of the Bureau, including the agents' travelling power. They have a network of secret doors throughout the city that act as portals to other doors, allowing them what amounts to instant travel. They can only use the doors if they are wearing their magic hats (seriously). The hats are actually kind of nifty looking, like 1930's gangster hats. The guardian agent (ha) also tells David that the Bureau doesn't have a blank check to do whatever they want, but in fact they have to follow various bureaucratic procedures, and must get special permission from "the Chairman" before they can brain-alter or brain-erase anybody. The Chairman is the one who writes the plan. It is heavily implied that the "Chairman" is God, the Plan is God's plan for everyone's life (in a way more creepy, controlling way than one would normally think), and the Adjustment Bureau agents are his angels or workers. Or enforcers.
By chance, David catches sight of Elise on the street and runs to her. They talk, he explains his 3-year absence by saying that he "lost her phone number" (not even a lie, because the Bureau took it). They go on a date or something, I forget. He tells her about his family all dying before he was 12, and the emptiness inside of him being his motivation to run for office. She tells him about her ex-fiance Adrian, who she broke up with 3 years ago after meeting David, because she realized she loved David more. Aww. She's a dancer (not that kind, perv) in a ballet company, and he goes to see her dance. But first, he is hunted down by the Chief Chief Agent (the Chief Agent's boss, who has now gotten involved because David just won't do what he's supposed to).
David asks the Chief Chief Agent (CCA) what the whole point of the "Plan" is, anyway. The CCA tells him that people used to have free will, but misused it. According to him, they were under the Plan up until the Roman Empire, when the Chairman took away the Plan and let people have free will, but the world promptly went into the Dark Ages. The Chairman took away free will again, gave people the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and then gave free will back. Within a few hundred years World War I and II occurred, and the Chairman took free will away yet again. The CCA says that if people had free will back now, the world would be destroyed. David asks why the Plan calls for him to be apart from Elise, then. The CCA says that it was part of the Plan for him to meet her only one time, because she was a good influence and inspired him, but that he was never supposed to see her again after that. In large doses, she starts being a bad influence. The Plan is for David to become President eventually, which he couldn't do if he were with her (owing to her being a bad influence). He goes on to say that their relationship would not only end David's dreams, but would end Elise's also. Separate from him, she becomes a world famous dancer. With him, she becomes a dance instructor for 6 year olds.
David feels terrible, and decides not to see Elise again because he doesn't want to ruin her dreams. However, he doesn't tell her any of this (because he's afraid of the brain-erase if he tells), and he doesn't try to tell her anything circumspectly (e.g. making up a reason why he can't see her). He simply cuts off all contact. Elise has no idea what happened, and is heartbroken. She does become a famous dancer, and gets back together with her ex-fiance.
Several years pass, and David sees an article in the paper saying that Elise is getting married. David is filled with remorse, and vows to go see her. His guardian agent has always been somewhat skeptical of the goodness of the Plan from the beginning, but has gone along with it up until this point because of fear of punishment from the rest of the Bureau and the Chairman. He sees David's pain, and finally levels with him about the real reason he can't be with Elise. It's not because she's a "bad influence", it's actually because she's "enough" to fill the emptiness inside of him. That emptiness is his main motivation for running for office, and filling it would mean he would lose interest in politics and not fulfill the Plan for him to be President. He says the Chairman sometimes edits the Plan, and in earlier versions of the Plan David WAS supposed to be with Elise (but not in the new Plan). They keep randomly meeting because it's fragments left over from the previous Plans; and that's why they love each so strongly, because in the earlier Plan they were supposed to. But in the new/current Plan, they're not. The agent turns out to have a conscience, and gives David his magic hat so that he can use the secret door network to get to the courthouse where Elise is getting married.
So, he puts on his dashing Capone-style hat, and off he goes! Elise is amazed - and pissed - to see him. He begs her to let him explain, and tells her all about the Bureau, the Plan, the threats of brain altering and erasure, the lack of free will, and all the rest of it. The Bureau agents know that he is using their magic hat and know that he's revealed the secret Plan to another person, and quickly come after him. David tells Elise about the hats and the door network they can use to try to run away, and asks if she's willing to go with him despite the risks. She looks teary eyed and mushily agrees. They tele-door off across the city, one step ahead of the agents.
Finally, they figure out how to tele-door to the actual, physical Bureau of Adjustment building itself. Their plan is to find the Chairman and basically ask him, what the hell man? They hurriedly scramble through the building looking for his office, but are unable to find it, and wind up cornered on a balcony, surrounded by agents. They know the jig is up and that they'll soon be brain-erased, so they hug and give each other a Titanic-style last kiss before they meet their doom. But when they break away from the kiss, all the agents are gone, except for David's guardian agent. David gasps and says "So YOU'RE the Chairman!!1", but the agent laughs and says no, he's not. He claims that the Chairman "meets everybody but they never know it" and that the REAL goal of the Plan (like, genuine for real, not just the keeping-the-earth-from-getting-destroyed thing that the CCA said) is to test people. If you go along with the Plan, you fail the test and you're not ready for free will yet. If you fight the Plan, you pass the test. He says that David proved that nothing would turn him aside from his One True Love, and as a result the Chairman has rewritten the Plan to allow David to do it. Everybody cheers, David and Elise kiss again, the agent gets his hat back, and everyone goes home happy. The End.
Ok, that was the longest "summary" in the history of ever, but I felt the need to write it (I still left out a lot, believe it or not), because the things that irk me are scattered throughout the movie.
We'll start with the Sledgehammer Of Subtlety that the Bureau wielded with such ham-fisted malice. And of course, the Nuclear Sledgehammer in case the regular Sledgehammer wasn't up to the job. Seriously, altering people's brains, and worse yet erasing them? How the hell is anybody supposed to rebel against the Plan - which is the only way to pass the test to get their free will back (even though they really don't; more on that later) - if they're forcibly prevented from it? If they're only nudged here and there they could fight against it, assuming they realized what was going on, which of course nobody does, but at least they'd have a remote chance of success. But BRAIN ERASED and forced down the chosen path? That's a catch-22 and no way to win. Interestingly, this implies that people really do have free will, but are prevented from using it. The Chairman might as well have made a world full of zombies and not even bothered with the illusion of free will. If I were David and had accidentally discovered all this, and some "angels" threatened to completely eradicate my mind, personality, etc if I didn't do what I was told, I would be enraged. If there were truly no way to fight it, I think I'd commit suicide instead of going along with some magic Plan. Fuck their Plan. Man, I'm getting mad just thinking about living in a world like that.
Moving on, the none-too-subtle parallel of God as the Chairman, the Plan as God's Plan, and the Adjustment Bureau agents as his angels. God/"the Chairman" comes off sounding like some kind of OCD control freak, and the angels are more like police enforcers than angels. If there really is a heaven, I sincerely hope that it isn't organized into a bureaucracy because that would be depressing beyond measure. The CCA's argument that the Plan is "necessary" because without it people invariably mess up, is crap. The whole catch-22 of following the plan vs rebelling against it, which I talked about above, means that you can never win. But if people are irredeemable anyway, why bother with giving the illusion of free will? I get that they needed to make it that way to make the movie more dramatic, but it makes it sound like God/the Chairman is just playing a giant game of Sim City. The brain-washing thing just adds to the theological trainwreck.
I know that many people believe that God really does have a divine plan for everything, but I doubt that this type of control-obsessed, manipulative, overbearing "Plan" is what they believe in. I hope not, anyway. I would find living in such a world to be dreadful, degrading, and oppressive. I certainly wouldn't call it divine.
David's decision to break it off cold with Elise after finding out that being together would ruin her dreams really angered me. That irked me more than anything else in the movie, actually. The audacity of David to make Elise's decision for her angered me - the CCA told him that choosing to stay with Elise would make her an elementary dance teacher instead of a world famous dancer, so he broke off their relationship cold turkey. I get that it's sweet that he didn't want to "destroy her dreams" and yadda yadda, but maybe Elise would have chosen to be with him over being a famous dancer. Maybe Elise could have found a way to be famous AND be married to David (of course that would only be possible without a stupid Plan in the way saying you can't). Maybe Elise would have chosen to pursue her dancing career but remained friends with David. Maybe Elise didn't really want to be a famous dancer in the first place; that was the Plan's dream for her, but it might not have been her dream for herself. She may have felt something else (like I don't know, love and happiness) was more important than dancing, had she been given a choice. But of course she never was, because David made that choice for her. He was under threat of brainwashing if he told anybody about the Plan, but he could have tried to sound out her motivations/wishes without revealing the Bureau. E.g. "If you had to choose, would you choose me over your dance career?" "Why, whatever do you mean David?" "I'm just curious. So, would you?" Ok, not very subtle, but come on. He could have at least /tried/.
Elise's character development is somewhat disappointing in the movie. She starts off as a sassy, no-nonsense daredevil, but gradually changes. Once she and David's relationship is established, Elise is treated not as a real, individual character anymore, but only as an adjunct to David, important only for the way that she influences him while her own story and feelings are mostly ignored. That's a shame, because when she was introduced at the beginning she had a vibrant personality, which gradually got bleached as time went on until by the end of the movie the audacious wedding crasher has diminished into a feeble hanger-on.
Anyway, back to the free will thing. At the end, the guardian agent is telling David that because he wouldn't let anything in the prescribed Plan come between him and his love, that he won the game or whatever so now God changed the plan so he can have love after all. He still doesn't have free will! He didn't undo the plan. He didn't get rid of the plan. He didn't remove the plan's influence from his own future or anybody else's. Now he just has a new plan! It's an improvement over the old one, but they're still not free. If the Chairman/agents can admit that their plan was flawed and that it was ultimately a failure, why not do something radical, like, oh I don't know. Get rid of the plan?! But instead, they just made a new plan. Ew.
But even worse than that, David and Elise were never really in love to begin with. They only loved each other because that's what the earlier plans called for. They weren't rebelling against the Plan in a fiery quest for true love and freedom; they were unconsciously trying to follow their pre-programmed original plan instead of the improperly programmed current plan. If the Chairman had changed the original plan sooner, or made the new plan take hold more thoroughly, then the remnants of the old plan would have been completely erased, and without the surviving fragments of it David and Elise would never have "fallen in love". That's the most depressing set-up to a love story ever. You can't even call it a love story because that's like saying that Quicken fell in love with Notepad on your computer. They're just programs and they don't have real feelings or reasoning processes, they just do what they're told, and if you tell them wrong they crash. Except they're stuck on the computer so they can't teleport around with magic hats.
Anyway, back to the free will thing again. I know this is jumping around a lot and growing stupidly lengthy, but whatever, it's my LJ. It comes out in the movie that David's family died before he was 12, and the guardian agent admits at one point that HE killed them. That was part of the plan, to make David all empty-feeling and thus giving him his internal motivation so they could steer him around later. What. The. Hell. The guardian agent admits to David what he did this, but David basically says "Oh, it's ok. It's the Plan. Whatevs." And then never speaks of it again. Personally, I would have been testing whether angels are really immortal. I thought "the Chairman" was supposed to have a good plan, hence the whole taking away of free will because people will screw it up? How is murder, with the intent to make a person depressed and empty, so that they're more easily manipulable, "good" in any way? And then stopping them from true love (or the closest thing they can get to it) so that they remain empty and manipulable? That's a diabolical plan.
Ok, last but not least. The "stick it to the man" aspect of this movie. There's a plan, but the plan is flawed. Fight the plan! That's the message we're supposed to come away with (I think). That's good in theory, but then in the movie itself it doesn't even work out that way. They don't get rid of the plan, they just get a re-write which allows them to have a slight improvement, but everything else is left the same. Arguably, they don't even fight the plan, because this whole time they're only in love because that's how they were supposed to be under the other plan; they're just trying to follow one plan instead of another, not trying to reject the plan altogether. The stick-it-to-the-man message that we're supposed to come away with is an illusion. An unsatisfying, irksome illusion.
And that is all!