Prose to Film: Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick

ADJUSTMENT TEAM
A short story by Philip K. Dick

“Adjustment Team” is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick that was first published in Orbit Science Fiction (September-October 1954). It has been reprinted several times, including in the collection, Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick (2002), which is where I read it. The story is the basis for the current film, The Adjustment Bureau, written and directed by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Mackie.

The story focuses on a real estate salesman named Ed Fletcher who accidentally sees the truth behind reality. On a bright sunny morning, someone from the Adjustment Team known only as “Clerk” must make sure that Ed is in Sector T137 which is scheduled for adjustment. Clerk assigns the task of making sure that Ed is at the right place at the right time to Ed’s dog, Dobbie, a “canine Summoner.”

Of course, things go awry. Ed arrives at his job and sees the world in an altered state. He ends up knowing something he shouldn’t know and is soon on the run from the Adjustment Team. How he resolves this crisis will determine his ultimate fate.

Like much of Philip K. Dick’s work, the “Adjustment Team” deals with themes of dislocation, paranoia, and unyielding bureaucracy, but there is, this time, also a theme of yearning for a connection with a higher being. When Dick has Ed meet the Old Man, the boss of the Adjustment Team, Dick has Ed begging the Old Man to understand his plight. It isn’t a stretch to see this as Dick’s take on the powerless everyman who seeks mercy and understanding from a higher authority – a tyrannical power inflexible about its rules. Still, the everyman believes that his request is reasonable, even in the face of a power that insists on the opposite.

Overall, Adjustment Team is a minor story. The characters are soft, although Ed Fletcher is more filled out. The adversaries are largely underutilized, although I’m sure the film, The Adjustment Bureau, makes more use of them. The ending of “Adjustment Team” suggests an optimism that is surprising, but that makes this story more charming than the beginning and middle indicate.

B