Review by © Jane Freebury

So, being tall, willowy and perfectly proportioned, with lustrous hair and perfect skin is not always the distinct advantage you might think it is. Not if you never age, anyway. It’s a shaky premise to build a movie on, but more preposterous ideas can sometimes work, so why not?

Lovely Adaline (Blake Lively) had an accident early last century and is still alive because it has stopped her aging. Still looking youthful has not conferred the kind of advantage one might imagine, because she doesn’t fit her ID profile and it has made people suspicious. So she has had to live on the run, a fugitive from intimacy—after a few early mistakes—except for the succession of King Charles Spaniels that she keeps for company.

Where, oh where, does Hollywood get its movie ideas from? A silly premise, but the dream factory knows full well that there’s nothing like a good romance to make sense of things.

One New Year’s Eve when Adaline is out and about, though it’s uncharacteristic behaviour. Her eyes lock with a handsome stranger across the room. Despite the lengths she goes to fob him off we know they are destined for each other, in the short term at least. Adaline has already dropped the broad hint that she is resolved to live the new year as though it is her last.

Ellis (Michiel Huisman, who was in Wild and is in Game of Thrones) woos and wins her and they attend his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary upstate. It’s a ‘meet the parents’ when things really start to unravel, ushering in a terrific turn by Harrison Ford as Ellis’ dad.

This could have been a halfway decent romantic drama, had it not taken itself seriously. The writing is tolerable and it is tastefully and intelligently produced. However, from the start events are explained in voiceover, a sign that the narrative is having trouble explaining itself. The ‘voice of god’ leads us through the early scenes and then returns at the end to ensure all makes sense.

Director Lee Toland Krieger, still in his early 30s, an award winner for earlier lower budget work, has done a reasonable job with Adaline, and (almost) saved it from itself. In the lead, Lively doesn’t exactly live up to her name but we suppose that experience has taught her character to be a cool customer. Huisman is fine, as is the earnest message not to mess with nature, but the whole enterprise is cut off at the knees by the silly premise. It does nothing but bestow on Adaline a wardrobe down the decades to die for.

In a capsule: A nearly decent film has emerged out of material based on a silly premise, which is a shame for Harrison Ford who is great in a support role.

2.5 stars