JOIN USAge of Adaline
English (U) ¬¬
Cast: Blake Lively, Harrison Ford, Michiel Huisman, Ellen Burstyn, Kathy Baker
Director: Lee Toland Krieger
An accident one snowy evening renders Adaline Marie Bowman ageless. Deem it marvel of science or divine miracle? Struck by lightning, our Adaline, electrified, is age-locked into immortality. She shall stay 29, for eternity, immune to the vagaries of Father Time.
While vanity should have had her gloat on her newfound status, Adaline, however, turns fugitive to keep her dark secret. Perpetually on the run, she is driven to nomadic existence, donning new names, shifting residences, forging new passports, criss-crossing San Francisco, even as her daughter Fleming ages in the natural process.
All is well until young Ellis Jones sets his eyes on her. Persistently pursuing her, despite her steely resolve to stave him off and escape entanglements, Jones ensures that ice-maiden Adaline thaws to his amorous attentions. Adaline seeks to indulge audiences in Benjamin Button type escapist extravaganza. Sadly, despite wanting to flow with the tide and temerity of Lee Toland Krieger’s fantastical Cinderella-fable, it fails. The reasons are aplenty. Blake Lively, contrary to her real-life name, is wooden and zombie-like as Adaline.
Likewise, Michiel Huisman as the besotted beau is bland and banal as Blake. While the film does pick a semblance of excitement when Harrison Ford arrives on the scene — when Adaline and Ellis go visiting — it is by then too late to have an already disinterested audience, perk up into life. That’s saying a lot about Krieger’s Intimations of Immortality.