Monday, January 11, 2021

The Age of Adaline (2015)

IMDb plot summary: A young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.
Directed by Lee Toland Krieger. Starring Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford, and Ellen Burstyn.

The plot and script for this movie are disappointingly unwilling to really dig into the interesting philosophical questions its premise sparks, preferring to focus on much more familiar romantic tropes of learning to trust, but what does shine in this movie are the performances, particularly Blake Lively as the title character and Harrison Ford as someone from her past she never expected to see again. I've never thought of Ford as a particularly talented actor, but he really hits every emotional note here exactly right. And Lively brings a groundedness and solemnity to her role that makes it absolutely effortless to believe that she is actually a 90-year-old woman trapped in a younger woman's body. There's enough good here that I'm confident in recommending it, especially to fans of either actor.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Age of Adaline > Meet John Doe
The Age of Adaline < Hoop Dreams
The Age of Adaline > The Hunt
The Age of Adaline < The Harvey Girls
The Age of Adaline < The Bad Sleep Well
The Age of Adaline < All's Faire In Love
The Age of Adaline > Charlie St. Cloud
The Age of Adaline < The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness
The Age of Adaline < Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
The Age of Adaline < Stalag 17
The Age of Adaline < Starship Troopers
The Age of Adaline > Being John Malkovich
Final spot: #1206 out of 3290, or 63%.

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