Romance is Timeless
Age of Adaline
We all have had the wish of staying young somewhere in our
lives. I’m willing to bet that it was some time around your mid-twenties. I say
this because at 25 I wished that I would stop aging. I was old enough to vote, drink,
and rent a car; come on what better age to be forever? Over this history of
film, writers and directors have often wondered what would happen if we stayed
young forever and how it would affect the people around us. This year Lionsgate takes a look at a woman that
doesn’t age and how the relationships in her life are affected in Age of Adaline.
Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively Savages) was born on January 1, 1908 and has lived a fairly
productive life until the age of 29. Adaline married, gave birth to a daughter,
and became a widow due to her husband accidental death. When Adaline reaches
the age of 29, she is involved in a freak snowfall which causes her to have a
car accident. While dying in frigid water, a lightning bolt strikes the water
and causes Adaline’s cells within her body to stop aging. After a few years and
realizing that she isn’t aging, Adaline goes on the run when the FBI also
figures out that she isn’t aging either. Over the next few decades Adaline changes
her name and her location frequently always trying to stay one step ahead of
the people chasing her. Adaline also never allows herself to become attached
romantically to anyone for too long due to their inevitable aging and death. However
that all changes for Adaline when she meets Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman
Game of Thrones), a young entrepreneur
who becomes strongly infatuated with Adaline, at a New Year's Eve party in San
Francisco. Can Adaline stop running long
enough to allow love catch up with her or will she sacrifice that part of her
life to stay hidden from the world?
Alright everyone, I give you another Hollywood mediocre film
that could have so much better if it weren’t for itself. The story is somewhat
fresh and believable at times, not due to the science fiction aspect of the
film but because of the fear of loving someone else so fully. Though Age of Adaline never fully embraces this
concept because of the subplots to the film that really don’t need to be there
in the first place.
The acting in the film was above par and sadly wasted for
this film. Lively’s Adaline basically represents history itself. Adaline is a character
that has drifted through time not really being notice, but always there in the
background. Much like history, we all look to the future and never really take
notice of where we come from. Lively has great maturity for a character that as
pretty much seen it all. Lively’s mannerisms and speech is what represents the
maturity that she exudes in this film. She presents herself quite properly and
speaks very eloquently that she seems to belong to another time. I don’t have
any complaints from any of the other performances, it’s just none of them are
extraordinary.
Lee Toland Krieger (Celeste and Jesse Forever) takes that
helm of this romantic drama. Very impressed with this young director because he
gives the film a very 1930’s or 1940’s feel to the film. Krieger creates a world
around Adaline that almost freezes in time with her, but is still set in modern
times. This is where the praise ends unfortunately because Krieger makes a
straight forward story a little more complicated than it needed to be. I
personally think that this is where Krieger’s inexperience as a major film
director comes in, because Krieger should have seen that the subplots were
unnecessary and edited them out. I am hopefully for the bright director, just
needs to find his voice for him to become better.
If you would like to check out a great performance by Blake
Lively, than Age of Adaline is good
film to watch. Just don’t watch this film expecting anything ‘other-worldly’
because you will be sadly disappointed. The film just never really gets out of
its own way for it to be great.
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