The whole basis of this movie is that free will is more-or-less an illusion. Sure, you can make decisions, but everything is subtlely guided so that it happens the way it was pre-ordained anyway. So basically, nothing you do matters, it was all planned out ahead of time. Sure, the heroes manage to break free and get to live their lives the way they want, but what about the rest of us?
It is mentioned that the period between the Middle Ages (or at least around 1100, when the worst of the Middle Ages ended) and World War I was entirely guided by the Bureau. This means that the entire institution of African slavery in the New World (which falls entirely in that period) is entirely their fault. Yes, that also implies they caused emancipation, but...cold comfort to the millions who died under black slavery in the 350 or so years beforehand. See also: The destruction of the Native Americans, the horrors that came with the Reformation, and if they took over after the Dark Ages and not the Middle Ages (they haven't been seen as the same thing for at least a century now), then the Black Death and the Mongol Terror as well.note On a reverse note, the years 500-1100, when the Bureau implies they let the reins loose, were great for just about everybody but Western Europe; even eastern Europe had the Byzantines. The Middle East, China, and the Mayans had it particularly good during this period; it's almost universally considered the brightest period in Islamic history by both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Thompson's description of history is incredibly Eurocentric and ignores that only Europe suffered from the Dark Ages.
The examples given for the main characters is that if they don't follow the plotted line, they won't become a senator or a famous dancer, as examples of why the titular Bureau's pushing mankind on a better path. But really, this is a case of exceptionalism- are they really making everyone's lives better? Are they spending just as much effort to ensure some guy fails high school and becomes a janitor? Or that someone gets a felony conviction and makes money cleaning toilets? It falls apart once you think about the fact that not everyone is going to become a movie star/senator/dancer, they are in fact going to live boring, ordinary lives. The Adjustment Bureau has to make the argument that some of us have to have crappy, terrible lives in order for "important people" to become rich and famous, or that someone's destined happy place in life in the grand master plan is to end up dying alone and poor somewhere.
It seems to me that the Bureau is mostly interested in directing big events in human history, not individual human lives. They'd be interested in directing the life of someone who would become president, but not people who have less effect on the entire world.
The most terrifying example of Fridge Horror comes at the very end of the film, when Harry suggests that the Chairman’s real plan was/is for David and Elise/the rest of the world to earn their free will by going against the plan. Instead of this being an enlightening God Is Good moment, it instead points to the Chairman being a horrific fusion between Demiurgic God and the Demiurge. Everyone lives in ignorance of the fact a sinister, antagonistic, teleporting bureaucracy manipulates every single aspect of their life, and anyone who discovers the truth is hit with a Morton's Fork. Either go back to normal life with the knowledge you have no free will, and that every single action you take is by someone else’s design, or you go up against a nigh omnipresent, nigh omniscient group that is able to track your every move and appear from any door, who will lobotomise you if you end up pissing them off enough. The Chairman goes from being an ultimately benevolent individual to a fucking monster who subjects his creation to life spanning manipulation on pain of death under the guise of grooming them for “free will”.
