Just a number
By: Nick Salacki, Staff Writer
I have never seen the unique form of story telling that appears in the new film “The Age of Adaline.” The movie attempts to create a fantasy San Francisco love story, fronted by Gossip Girl alum Blake Lively. Her title character has a special condition where she doesn’t age, and is complicated by a mysterious unnamed narrator who explicitly explains the science behind her condition. This Lee Toland Krieger picture is quite breath taking in its diverse form of screenwriting and story telling.
Lively stars as Adaline Bowman, a 29-year-old woman who, when she was in a severe vehicle accident, was electrocuted and given the special ability to stop from aging any further. Although she tries to prevent herself from getting too close to anyone who might expose her secret, fate has a different plan for her.
Watching Lively perform as this character, and seeing her face on the posters was quite refreshing compared to her role in “Green Lantern.” One fault I found was within the love Adaline had for Michiel Huisman’s character Ellis Jones. The trailers are full of his character, so his involvement in the story makes sense. Unfortunately, the chemistry between both actors is completely non-existent. However, it should be noted that Huisman is not just a pretty face with a rockin’ body. It seems he also can act, in both this film and in “Game of Thrones” and “Orphan Black.”
The romance the two characters shared was supposed to (or at least seemed to) structure the entire story along with Adaline’s condition. However, I believe that the film did the exact opposite.
What the audience should take away from the film is the phenomenon that Lively portrayed and which kept her from ever loving again. Although it wasn’t until one of her past lovers who she once rejected due to her condition (Harrison Ford), came back to change the course of her endless life.
I also didn’t like the fact that, even though I love Lively in this, I feel like she’s just another “pretty white actress” used to take the audience’s eyes further away from the current issue on diversifying film characters.
Regardless, Lively is incredibly charming as the non-aging Adaline Bowman and the film is such a perfect introduction for more films to come. Perhaps ones where she leads the story and doesn’t just act as the damsel in distress.
3.5/5 stars
