The Age of Adaline
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The Age of Adaline

When a freak car accident leaves Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) forever frozen at 29 years old, her life eventually becomes little more than a series of chores. Unable to form any long-term relationships or settle down in any one place for too long – she has to start all over again every decade or so – she’s become happy with merely existing. Until one New Year’s Eve, with only a few weeks left before she moves away to start over yet again, she meets Ellis (Michiel Huisman), a young man who stirs feelings in her she’s done her best to avoid, and has a link to a past she thought she’d put behind her.
This isn’t really interested in exploring what it’d be like to be forever young, and most of the past is dealt with via brief flashbacks and (for once, well-handled) voice-over. Instead, Adaline’s immortality is used largely as an obstacle to romance – she has a dark secret that means she can’t be her real self around anyone – which turns out to work perfectly well in this low key romantic drama. The stronger casting for the older characters (Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn) gives the impression this is probably aimed at older viewers despite the youthful leads, especially as Huisman comes across more as the kind of guy who’d be the runner-up for the girl in a better film. Lively works well with her character’s self-imposed distance and sense of melancholy (the warmer scenes, not so much), which helps this otherwise featherweight film achieve an occasional sombre note. There’s so little to this film it wouldn’t take much to render it utterly forgettable; decent work from Lively and Ford enable this to linger at least as long as the walk back to the car.