If your favorite part of any given vampire movie is the romantic challenges posed by being eternally young and beautiful (and not all that annoying blood-sucking stuff), The Age of Adaline is the movie for you.
As we’re told in a somewhat whimsical voiceover narration (that feels curiously out of step with the rest of this earnest film), when she was 29-years-old, Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) was nearly killed in a car accident and then revived by a lightning bolt. Somehow this left her no longer “ravaged by the effects of time.” (The film actually attempts to scientifically explain her condition, mido-chlorian style, but I think—hope?—that part was tongue-in-cheek. )
For a little while, Adaline is able to pass as the youngest-looking middle-aged lady ever. Eventually, the government gets suspicious and she realizes she needs to change her identity and flee. (Which kind of makes her…horrible? How bout submitting yourself to some medical tests so the rest of us can get a piece of that “looking like Blake Lively for eternity” action? . . . but I digress). Only her daughter (played as an older woman by Ellen Burstyn) knows the truth of her “affliction.”
I thought The Age of Adaline would contain several mini period pieces, focusing on Adaline’s doomed love affairs (and fabulous outfits) through the years—and there’s a little bit of that. But a full 80 percent of the film is concerned with contemporary Adaline, who lives alone with her dog (a descendent of her previous dogs), works at the Historical Society of San Francisco, and whose best friend is—wait for it—a blind lounge pianist who thinks Adaline (now going by Jenny) is a middle-aged cougar, just like she is.
A few things about Adaline: She has courtly manners, speaks many languages, and is even learning Braille (the film seems to confuse this with the gift of learning sign language; Adaline learning Braille is of no use to her best friend.) She’s also REALLY good at Trivial Pursuit.
Adaline is at a party when she meets handsome tech mogel Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman), who pursues her, ardently, until she can no longer deny her feelings. Then he takes her home to meet his parents—mom is played by Kathy Baker—and his father (an affecting Harrison Ford) takes one look at her and sputters, “Adaline?” Plot twist!
As for Blake Lively…look, I understand why the producers cast her in this role—she’s lovely and has the greatest head of hair this side of Connie Britton—but she doesn’t exactly project old soul. Now maybe I’m unfairly pigeonholing her because of all those years on Gossip Girl and her trendy lifestyle blog Preserve. But she strikes me as very of-the-moment.
On the other hand . . . mmmm, Michiel Huisman. I’m not embarrassed to admit I’ve been crushing on him since his days on Treme (he can now be seen on both Game of Thrones and Orphan Black) and I think it’s wonderful that he’s starting to get leading man roles. The filmmakers agree—giving him the kind of entrance generally reserved for starlets and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby. When the camera first pans to Ellis, entering that party—wearing a tux, scanning the room smolderingly—my (mostly female) audience gasped.
The Age of Adaline is handsomely mounted and just corny enough to be enjoyable. It’s an old-fashioned romance, filled with beautiful, star-crossed lovers and that one genuinely interesting wrinkle about Ellis’s dad. Now if only Adaline had bitten someone’s neck they’d really be onto something.