Review: The Age of Adaline

Adaline Bowman is a curious case. First seen making her way across present-day San Francisco to obtain forged identification documents, she is counting down the weeks until she and her beloved dog move to a farmhouse in Oregon to start yet another new life. This is not the first time Adaline has had to pull up roots, nor is it the first time she has had to assume another identity. In fact, she has been running away for the past 60 years.

You see, Adaline is not as she appears. As a narrator (Hugh Ross) informs us, Adaline was the first baby born when the clock struck midnight and the year 1908 began. By the time she was 29, she was a widow with a young daughter. One uncharacteristically snowy California night, she crashes her car into a river. A bolt of lightning strikes the near-submerged vehicle, resuscitating her already stilled heart. She rises from the cold waters as if baptised and, because of some thermonuclear law that will not be discovered until the year 2035, Adaline Bowman shall remain forever young.

This condition of eternal youth is more curse than blessing. It means not being able to share in her daughter's life (though the two remain in close contact). It means watching her daughter Flemming (Ellen Burstyn) look older than her and have to pretend to be her mother's grandmother. It means having an album full of photos of the dogs who have served as her faithful companions over the decades. It means not allowing herself to fall in love, because what is love if you can't grow old together? Adaline did break her own rule, just once, when she fell in love with a young man who helped her fix her car when she was stranded in the English countryside. Months later, when she saw he was about to propose, she left without explanation.

Now as she is preparing to shed her current life for another, she finds herself pursued by the ardent Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman) for whom she lets down her guard. As if Ellis wasn't complication enough, she is stunned to discover that his father William (Harrison Ford) is the very same young man she loved and left all those years ago.

The Age of Adaline possesses a timeless quality that is evoked by Claude Pare's production design and Angus Strathie's sumptuous and stylish costumes. Though digitally lensed, cinematographer David Lanzenberg imparts a cinematic texture to the film. The story itself is the type of implausible but deeply romantic melodrama that would have flourished in the Forties and Fifties like the fantasy romances The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Portrait of Jennie. By any standard of logic, The Age of Adaline shouldn't work yet work it does despite, or perhaps because of, its reserve and politesse.

Blake Lively is an inherently naturalistic, graceful, and understated performer. These qualities, along with her poise and sophistication, served her well during her six-season reign as Gossip Girl's Upper East Side queen Serena van der Woodsen and they serve her well as Adaline. Everything about her - her comportment, the clipped diction, a certain discretion and formality - conveys that an old soul resides in her young body. It is a performance remarkable for its subtlety and expressiveness.

Huisman, brimming with undeniable charm, proves himself a dashing romantic lead. Ford puts forth a restrained yet impassioned portrayal of a man who has known both love and loss. His selfless exhortation to Adaline reminds us that time, however much may be granted, is not to be wasted. In fact, time's finite nature, the film argues, may be more of a blessing that we realise.

The Age of Adaline

Directed by: Lee Toland Krieger

Written by: J. Mills Goodloe, Salvador Paskowitz

Starring: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn, Kathy Baker, Hugh Ross