Anytime a movie employs a gimmick,
as The Age of Adaline clearly does, it can be either good or bad. Sometimes the filmmakers will use the gimmick
to cover up a lack of story and make the narrative appear stronger than it
actually is. On the other hand,
sometimes a gimmick can be used to enhance a story. This movie falls into the second
category. There is more to this film
than the obvious gimmick, and that is a good thing.
This is a hard film to summarize because,
unlike the trailers for it, I don’t want to give away too much. The bottom line is that, in the 1930’s, Adaline
Bowman (Blake Lively) had a car accident at 29 years old that caused her to
stop aging. The clever part about this
is that her condition was apparently caused by a scientific phenomenon that has
not been discovered yet, which eliminates the need for the film to actually
explain it. Everything that happens
after that should probably remain a mystery.
Blake Lively is absolutely terrific
in this movie. I was not expecting this
caliber of a performance from her. She
does a great job of making the audience believe that she is a person who has
been alive all these years. Her accent
and dialect are a little strange, which would be the case if she were really
over 100 years old. She makes a point of
always keeping a very low profile for fear that somebody will figure her
out. Lively’s performance in a pretty
tough role is remarkable and, in itself, is a reason to watch the film. Harrison Ford is in this movie and great as
always. He adds a much needed degree of
humor at certain points. His scenes with
Blake Lively toward the end are probably the best in the film.
I really hated the main guy
character in this movie. I don’t think
it was the actor (Michiel Huisman) as much as the way the character was
written. He was a very stereotypical, perfect
leading man in a romance movie type. He
reads poetry, donates to all kinds of charity, the usual thing. I felt like this film was above that. Also, because of how the story develops, they
really didn’t need all that to explain why Adaline is so attracted to him.
The dialogue in the film is very
hit or miss. Some of it is very
clever. For instance, in one scene,
Adaline is looking at pictures of herself in a photo album. She says, “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen
them all”, which is funny because she always looks the same. This is something subtle that seems natural
for her to say. The majority of the dialogue
is way too obvious. It’s like they think
the audience is going to forget about Adaline’s condition so they need to be
reminded every two or three minutes through some type of awkward dialogue
exchange.
I thought this was a really good
story. That being said, there are some
stupid things that happen in the film that detracts from it. For instance, I don’t ever remember seeing
lightning and snow at the same time before.
There is one scene early in the film where Adaline escapes, far too
easily, from FBI custody. They almost
had a very good twist in the film but it was completely spoiled by the
trailer. Also, one unnecessary element
of the twist made it far too coincidental for me to buy. None of these things, however, can even
compare to the ridiculousness that is the ending of this film. Most of the movie goes to great lengths to be
realistic and believable. It is
unfortunate that they decided to go with an ending that seemed ripped right out
of a Disney fairytale.
This movie is perfectly watchable,
the problem is that it could have been much more than that with only a few
minor changes. I enjoyed the majority of
it and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.
The only thing spectacular about the film is the performance of Blake
Lively but it is generally well made and worth seeing. The Movie Man gives it 3 out of 5 stars.
click the link to visit The Movie Man on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/reviewsmovieman?ref=hl
No comments:
Post a Comment