The Age of Adaline *** (2015, Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, Kathy Baker, Ellen Burstyn) – Movie Review

Blake Lively stars as Adaline Bowman a young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, who stops ageing after an accident at the age of 29.

In her 40s, she starts worrying about looking so young, and spends many years alone, till one New Years’ Eve she meets artist Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman), a man who complicates her apparently eternal life.

That’s the high concept of this plush fantasy romantic drama, written by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz. It’s carefully tailored to a female audience, die-hard romantics among whom may well fall under its peculiar little spell.

Old-fashioned and un-cynical as this love story is, it feels like the film-making work of someone pretty old, but actually director Lee Toland Krieger looks pretty young. Anyway, he crafts it lovingly and expertly in a visually beautiful production, with great-looking sets, costumes and location. It also feels like a woman must have written it, but, as you see, not so. It just shows how wrong it is to typecast people.

Harrison Ford and Kathy Baker do their absolute best with their soggy roles as Ellis Jones’s parents who are celebrating their 40th anniversary, when Ellis takes Adaline home to meet the parents. It immediately turns out that old Ford thinks he has met her before, a long time ago, in the Sixties. Ellen Burstyn also does her absolute best with her role as Adaline ‘s aged daughter. The oldsters add class, no doubt about it.

Lively has most of the movie to herself, and she’s brisk, efficient and mighty professional, acting like an automaton that the role sort of requires, though that gives the actress trouble in staying sympathetic and alluring. Alas she feels a bit too much like a beautiful, slightly glacial model.

Huisman is a bit grungy and shaggy looking, as befits his posh, rich artist status, and would have been perfect as famer Gabriel Oak in far from the Madding Crowd. He obliges the female audience by showing off his torso after a shower. It must have been written in his contract. Obviously, they make a very handsome couple, just made for each other, so the chances that they don’t live happily ever after at the end are pretty minimal. But still, you never know…

You can second guess the ending real easy, if you run the plot through your brain, and wonder where the story could possibly be headed. It’s not necessarily a very bright movie but, as we say, it’s plenty plush, romantic and escapist. There’s something a tiny bit mechanical and manipulative about it, but it’s not at all bad.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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