The Age of Adaline (2015)

Plot of The Age of Adaline: Adaline works in a library… no, lets start earlier. Adeline was married to a man who died during the construction of the San Francisco bridge, she had been born in 1908. She had crashed her car into a lake, and in the freezing water her bodily functions had slowed and she died. However she was revived by a lightning strike, and resumed her life, finding out that the event had interrupted her aging process. At the age of 45, but still looking like a twenty something she is stopped for a traffic violation and her ID confiscated. This results in her being chased by the FBI, and causes her to start living off the grid, with a fake ID, changing her location and work every few years, and avoiding long term relationships. But finally she falls in love with Ellis, a young millionaire (handy), and agrees to go to his father’s 40th wedding anniversary. The father recognises her as a young woman he had fallen in love with when a young man. She pretends that he had fallen for her mother, but he does not believe her, so things will come to a head.

Content: There is no sex or nudity but maybe a bit of social drinking. Of necessity there is a lot of voice-over. Adaline appears during the passing of the years, fortunately being able to see herself in old news reel footage and then is seen through the ages, dressed in the fashions of the time and looking suitably slinky. About half way through we meet Ellis’s father, Harrison Ford, and from there we go back to their early relationship, starting when he pushed her MGA on a country road, and ending after he had sewn up a cut on her hand which was later to identify her to him. It is handy that Ellis is a entrepreneur who has made a fortune, with an app I think.

A View: This film is billed as a romantic fantasy. It got mixed reviews and may in the end have made some money. Film buffs might have been a bit surprised to see Blake Lively fully clothed, since she has often appeared more scantily clad due to her statuesque physique. At least on critic felt that the whole tone of the film changed when Harrison Ford appeared, and it sort of did. Up to that time I wondered where the hell it was going, particularly since she never had any trouble with the FBI. But it was a movie that was so muted that you might choose to have it on while doing something else.

Fun Fact: The young Harrison Ford was played by Anthony Ingruber, a young man discovered impersonating the star on You Tube.