Post 9/11 Cinema - The Adjustment Bureau

Synopsis

In New York, the prominent politician David Norris is disputing the election for the Senate but his past of bad boy makes him lose the election. He meets the stranger Elise Sellas hidden in the Waldorf's toilet and she tells that she had crashed a party and the security guards are chasing her. They start a conversation and they immediately fall in love with each other. However the guards find her and David does not see her again. However she inspires him to make a remarkable speech. Three years later, David is travelling by bus and he sees Elise on the sidewalk. He gets out of the bus to meet her and he learns that she is a dancer. Further, she gives her phone number to him and David promises to call her. However, strangers wearing hats approach to David and tell that they belong to the Adjustment Bureau and Elise and David must be kept apart. They destroy the piece of paper with her phone number and David is unable to contact Elise. When David meets Elise again, the strangers use their abilities to keep them apart. What is the reason why David and Elise can not be together?

Elements that make it post 9/11 cinema

The Adjustment Bureau discusses many of the themes of 9/11. One that it discusses is the Patriot Act. The USA PATRIOT Act is an American legislation signed into law of the 26th October 2001. It allows the various US Government agencies the ability to monitor the electronic communications of it's citizens. The Adjustment Bureau is an agency, much like the CIA in terms of public awareness of their projects, that monitors every human in the world. Via their book known as 'The Plan' they can track every movement, every phone call, every decision that a member of the public make. The Adjustment Bureau doesn't directly criticise the act, but does allow the audience to make up their own mind. For example, some audience members would be horrified that an agency can track your every move and would feel oppositional to the USA PATRIOT Act. Alternatively though, the audience would feel angry but understanding that by The Adjustment Bureau can monitor everyone, they are then able to detect when something bad is about to happen and then 'Adjust' the world so that it never happened. This is the same mentality when discussing the USA PATRIOT Act. If the government can track everyone's communications, they are able to detect a potential terrorist act and prevent it from happening. They would support the USA PATRIOT Act if it meant that another situation like 9/11 would never happen again.

Another theme that post 9/11 cinema deals with is the conspiracy theory that the American government attacked the Twin Towers themselves in order to allow laws such as the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed America to conduct the mass surveillance of it's citizens, and the torture of suspected terrorists. In The Adjustment Bureau, there are several instances in which The Adjustment Bureau do things against themselves in order to change the course of the world. For example in the beginning of the film, The Adjustment Bureau intervention team enter the office of Charlie ___ who works alongside David Norris. Even though Harry ___ fails to adjust David, rather than change 'The Plan' to for example lock the doors stop him entering the office, they allow him to enter the office and bump into them 'by accident' so that they can take him to the Bureau, and stop him from seeing Elise ever again. We also see Harry fail to catch up with David who got the bus on time, yet as soon as David reaches the office, Harry is already there and helping with his capture by the Bureau, this connotes that it was planned for David to encounter the intervention team. Later in the film, Harry (who appears to be in direct communication with 'The Chairman' of The Adjustment Bureau, plants the seed into his head for him to use the hat and fight against The Bureau in order to stop Elise for marrying someone else. David and Elise evade the capture of Thompson who is the case officer for David, but is trapped on the roof of the Bureau's office building. However rather than being reset by the intervention team, the team disappear and the plan get rewritten to allow David and Elise to have free will over their own lives. This suggests that Bureau is trying to sabotage itself in order to allow humans to have free will over their own lives, and prove to itself how successful it would be. One of the conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 is that the American government attacked the Twin Towers themselves. There are several pieces of evidence that supposedly prove that this conspiracy theory is true. Firstly the USA PATRIOT Act was brought into law on the 26th October 2001. It took a record speed of