Skip to main content

The Age of Adaline


Starring: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, and Ellen Burstyn
Directed by: Lee Toland Krieger
Screenplay by: Salvador Paskowitz, Allison Burnett, and J. Mills Goodloe

     Wouldn't it be wonderful to live forever?  Based on this movie, probably not, especially if you're the only one who can live forever.
     Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) is born on January 1, 1908.  As a young woman, she is involved in an accident that changes her life.  She is immune to aging and becomes essentially immortal.  Fast forward over 80 years to the present day; her daughter, Flemming (Ellen Burstyn) is an old woman and Adaline still looks exactly the same.  Nobody can know her secret other than her daughter.  Her inability to age has made for an extraordinarily difficult life.  She must constantly be on the move and change her identity so people do not get suspicious.  It also is difficult for her to create close relationships with people, until Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman) comes along.
    Ellis is a young philanthropist whom Adaline meets at a New Year's eve party.  He has a strong liking toward her and constantly begs her to go out with him.  After some time, they go to spend the weekend with his parents, William (Harrison Ford) and Kathy (Kathy Jones).  While there, Adaline's past comes back to haunt her, forcing her to make a decision that will change her life forever.  Will she keep running from her secret and everyone she knows and cares about?  Or will she stop running?
    What if we could live forever?  That's the question people have been asking for an incredibly long time.  What would it be like if we could avoid death altogether?  Wouldn't it get lonely after a while? If you use this movie to answer these questions, you may not like the answer you're given.  There have been countless movies about heroes and villains attempting to gain immortality as if it were a good thing to be able to live forever.  This is a film about an ordinary woman put into this extraordinary situation.  She is immune to the ravages of time, but nobody else around her is.  She is forced to watch everyone around her age while she stays young forever.
     Here's the problem; there is no way possible that this could happen to anybody.  It's almost like a bad science fiction concept.  Hugh Ross's occasional narration helps the story along in some places, especially at the beginning, but there are moments when it feels like a tremendous interruption, sometimes about things that are complete nonsense.  This is a film that viewers can really get sucked into and the narration truly does feel like an interruption at times.  A little less narration might have made this a better film.
     Adaline is a woman clearly stuck in the past mentally.  Physically she adapts well to the times but mentally, it's like she has not left the 1940s at times.  This is apparent in the mother-daughter exchanges.  It is odd to see Ellen Burstyn playing Blake Lively's daughter in the film, but you just have to roll with it.
      There is a good romance story between Adaline and Ellis but at points, it feels too much like a romantic melodrama film and not the fictional biopic the film truly is.  Blake Lively and Michiel Huisman work well together on screen, even though in the beginning it may seem that they don't make a very good couple.
     Blake Lively delivers an excellent performance, commanding the show throughout the entire duration of the movie.  This is a film that proves not only that she is beautiful, but can act well too.
     The Age of Adaline is definitely a movie you just have to roll with.  It's explained in a strange fashion, making her condition of being ageless seem plausible, when anyone with a brain in their head knows better.  This is a very well crafted film with somewhat of an epic sense through the score by Rob Simonsen.  It's the kind of movie you can truly lose yourself watching.
    I give The Age of Adaline a B+.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hunger Games

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth Directed by: Gary Ross Screenplay by: Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins      If reality television hasn't gone too far yet, then this show should definitely make it go too far.      In a futuristic nation called Panem, one boy and one girl are selected from each of the nation's twelve districts to represent them in an annual television event called the Hunger Games.  Of the 24 contestants, only one will survive in this televised fight to the death.      I like the concept of the story.  While this futuristic society seems somewhat simple, it does not seem all that well developed.  It is unknown how this society came into being, even though it is known how the Hunger Games began.      If this film were released last year, I would have hoped it would be nominated for best make-up.  Many of the characters look absolutely ridiculous and are way too flashy, but the make-up is v
2 comments
Read more

First Man

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, and Corey Stoll Directed by: Damien Chazelle Screenplay by: Josh Singer Based on the book by James R. Hansen      Yes, this is the same director who did La La Land from a few years ago.  But this is a true story this time, and not necessarily a feel good one.      Many of us know about Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.  First Man is not simply the story of the moon landing, but the story about Armstrong and what led him to be the first man in history to walk on the moon.  It's a story about making huge sacrifices for himself, and his family, in order to accomplish such a goal, as well as overcoming a great deal of grief.       The film focuses almost entirely on Neil (Ryan Gosling).  The film opens up on him as one of the premiere pilots in the military, piloting the X-15; a plane that was capable of flying over 100,000 feet altitude.  He is portrayed as
Post a Comment
Read more

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Starring Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter, and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil: Afterlife is a somewhat scary action thriller about a zombie dominated planet during present times. It's the fourth movie in the franchise. Alice (Jovovich) is the former head of security at the Umbrella Corporation, the company that created the T-Virus that accidentally escaped and turned everybody into zombies. She travels to Alaska to what she thinks is a small town called Arcadia, where there is supposedly a colony of survivors that are infection free. She is drawn by transmissions saying that they offer safety and security, food and shelter. When she arrives, nothing is there, but she picks up Claire Redfield (Larter) and travels to what once was Los Angeles where there is another colony of four survivors living atop a prison rooftop and surrounded by zombies. They find that the Arcadia is actually a ship just offshore. Can they make it to the ship? Milla Jovovich plays a very act
2 comments
Read more