TORONTO — The Age of Adaline is a drama about a woman (Blake Lively) who becomes immortal following a chain of bizarre events and goes through life avoiding close relationships — lest her secret be known.
Directed by Lee Toland Krieger (Celeste and Jesse Forever), the movie was shot last spring in Vancouver. It also stars Michiel Huisman, Harrison Ford and Ellen Burstyn.
Are audiences anxious for a little romance at the cinema or will The Age of Adaline die an early death? Here’s a look at some of the reviews.
“Both earnest romantic melodrama and science-fiction thought experiment, it’s an elegant hodgepodge of tones and tropes, sometimes heavy-handed, sometimes silly, but always admirably sure of purpose,” wrote Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair.
“It may lack in subtleties, and is often goofily un-self-aware. And, sure, Lively may on occasion come across more as a girl playing dress up, or a fancy paper doll, instead of a wise, lonely centenarian. But I like the film anyway,” Lawson continued.
He noted Lively is “a bit stiff” but opined that Ford “does some of the best work we’ve seen from him in a long while.”
The Guardian reviewer Jordan Hoffman agreed.
“This is Harrison Ford’s best performance in 22 years,” he declared.
Hoffman said Lively “holds her own” and offers “a side of her we certainly haven’t seen before.”
Calling The Age of Adaline “frequently preposterous,” he decided it’s “an emotional and even bold chamber drama.
“Its ending is ludicrous, but also perfect, and I’d be lying if I didn’t get a little choked up.”
Nathalie Atkinson of The Globe and Mail described the movie as “a profoundly silly but very handsome throwback romantic fantasy.”
She, too, singled out Ford’s “best small role in years.”
Atkinson was less enthused about Lively.
“Lively’s performance is most definitely not lively – it’s a series of self-conscious poses, looking wistfully out car windows or into the middle distance, all of the staring tinged with what’s either melancholy or lack of affect,” she wrote.
“It’s skin-deep glamour and mystery – radiant to look at, but that’s it. Lively glides across the screen from scene to scene – like the ballroom of a grand old hotel with a suitor in hot pursuit – with all the emotional weight of a model in a perfume commercial.”
In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis referred to the title character as “a woefully under-conceptualized gimmick.”
Dargis opined “she delivers a muted, largely opaque performance” but liked Huisman and Ford for their “very nice performances.”
ABC News Radio declared Lively has “a warmth and charm that seems effortless, with that hint of aloofness that only the major stars have.”
Lively’s character, though, “isn’t all that interesting” and “there’s an emotional connection missing, which ultimately holds this film back.”
Jon Frosch of The Hollywood Reporter described the movie as “an elegantly confected cream puff of a melodrama” that “plays like an exercise in handling a preposterous story, booby-trapped for maximal ridiculousness, with tasteful conviction.”
He wrote: “Far from the bloated tearjerker suggested by the trailer, the film is pleasant, respectable and a bit dull, reining in the inherent silliness of its material and taking few risks.”
Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri opined The Age of Adaline “delivers the twists and turns of its fantastical plot with elegance and confidence.”
But, Ebiri added, “the romance between Huisman and Lively is supposed to be the central attraction here, and while they are both supremely attractive, it’s hard to buy them as a couple.”
Krieger managed to keep the movie’s tone “playful enough that we don’t ask too many questions of the silly premise” but Ebiri found it “disjointed.”
“You walk out of the film pleased, but unmoved.”
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