Review of The Age of Adaline (2015) by Alice S — 31 May 2015

I just find Blake Lively to be the most stunning human specimen alive with the smoothest of whiskey voices to boot, so even though the first half of the movie is a lot of backstory and fake science, I was still enraptured by the gorgeous, perfume-ad shots of Lively - all resplendent in period and modern (yet distinctly nostalgic) dresses and coiffures. She is also quite adequate as Adaline, a private though subtly cheeky woman who shies away from close relationships due to her unfortunate condition of never aging.

I don't really buy Ellis and Adaline's relationship arc though. I couldn't ever really tell if Adaline was really falling in love with Ellis, or just taking a chance on opening her heart to this kind, yet overly persistent rich guy. It's a ridiculously ham-handed coincidence that Adaline had a fling with Ellis' father, William, in the 70s ("She did love you." "I know" - teehee!), and while that plotline resolution has some beautiful things to say about past, current, and future love, as well as some great, emotionally charged acting moments for Harrison Ford and his young doppelganger, Anthony Ingruber (doing a spot on vocal imitation by the way), neither the movie nor its pervasive narrator ever explains away the hokey fate angle, the age difference conundrum, or the (pardon my impropriety) I-schtupped-your-dad ickiness. Reigniting the past romance with twenty-eight-year-old Lively and seventy-three-year-old Ford may have been visually awkward, so I guess there really was only one Twilighty way for the movie to end.