Adaline Bowman seems wiser than her apparent age, and for good reason – a freak car accident renders the film’s heroine ageless, forever stuck at the age of 29.
While we often wish we could press pause on the ageing process and stay in our twenties for the rest of our lives, The Age of Adaline explores the deep curse of immortality.
For Adaline, played by a captivating Blake Lively, her condition has meant she must live a life of solitude.
Every ten years she uproots her life and changes her identity to protect her secret getting out. The only person aware of her unique predicament is her elderly daughter Flemming, played by Ellen Burstyn.
Playing a 29-year-old mother to an eighty-something daughter sounds like an impossible task, the beautiful mother-daughter bond between Lively, 28, and Burstyn, 82, is well and truly alive in the film.
While we could stare at the stunning outfits Adaline wears as she watches each era pass her by – from the 1920s flapper dresses to the colourful threads of the Sixties – it’s the unexpected love triangle that really draws you in.
Just as she’s planning to relocate from San Francisco to Oregon to start fresh, in comes self-made-millionaire-turned-philanthropist Ellis Jones.
Michiel Huisman delivers a stirring performance as Ellis, while Ellen Burstyn (bottom) plays Lively’s eight-something daughter.
Game of Thrones star Michiel Huisman delivers a stirring performance as Ellis – an ambitious man consumed by his love of by a woman he barely knows.
Things get even more complicated when Ellis introduces Adaline to his parents.
“You look like an old friend of mine,” his father William, played by the wonderful Harrison Ford, cryptically comments when he meets his son’s new girlfriend. As fate would have it, Adaline and William enjoyed a summer of love in London many years ago.
The Age of Adaline teaches us that growing older shouldn’t be feared and, when such a simple thing is taken away from you, you can in fact long for it.
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For decades Adaline Bowman has tried to evade time, but what happens when her past finally catches up to her present?
