2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for a single suggestive comment
By Derrick Bang
I’m a sucker for romantic
fantasies.
I may be the only person in the
country who fell under the spell of last year’s Winter’s Tale, which remains woefully under-appreciated. Nicholas
Cage and Meg Ryan still work their magic during the fourth (fifth?) viewing of
1998’s City of Angels, and the 2009
adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife — although not perfect — captivates nonetheless.
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| Despite decades of cautious, low-profile activity that has kept her safe, and out of public view, Adaline (Blake Lively) allows herself to fall in love with Ellis (Michiel Huisman), thereby granting him tacit access to the carefully guarded details of her life. We can't help thinking that this is unwise... |
As for the 2007 adaptation of
Neil Gaiman’s Stardust? Simply
delightful.
All of which makes me one of the
ideal target viewers for The Age of
Adaline ... and, therefore, one of many doomed to disappointment.
This is an extremely difficult
and delicate genre. One false step — a contrivance too many, a tone too
maudlin, a tragedy too melodramatic — and the whole endeavor collapses like an
improperly cooked soufflé.
Scripters J. Mills Goodloe and
Salvador Paskowitz definitely have a clever premise here. Their execution, however,
leaves much to be desired. Director Lee Toland Krieger isn’t much help either;
his oeuvre centers around snarky, modern-era gender battles such as The Vicious Kind and Celeste & Jesse Forever. Krieger,
apparently operating outside his comfort zone, hasn’t the faintest idea how to
make this eccentric drama work.
Which is a shame, because stars
Blake Lively and Michiel Huisman are very good together. Their line deliveries
sparkle, the tension between them crackles, and — despite the overwhelming odds
against — we genuinely want their star-crossed relationship to catch fire and
endure.
But Krieger, Goodloe and
Paskowitz keep getting in their own way. Every time we succumb to Lively’s
melancholy charm and radiant incandescence, we’re yanked out of the moment by a
particularly tin-eared line of dialogue, or another load of pseudo-medical
gibberish from the off-camera narrator.
Let’s start with that narrator.
Never has a film been less in need of off-camera commentary.
Apparently unable to perceive any of the gentler, more satisfying ways of
conveying essential information, Goodloe and Paskowitz have their omniscient
observer (Hugh Ross) bury us beneath paragraphs of laughably technical
codswallop.
Perhaps they were inspired by Jim
Dale’s wonderfully arch commentary throughout each episode of TV’s lamentably
short-lived Pushing Daisies. Trouble
is, that show’s tone is overtly whimsical and deliberately exaggerated, whereas
Adaline exists in the real world. And
in the real world, pedantic explanations are boring and inappropriate.
As Gene Roddenberry famously —
and quite astutely — observed, way back in the day, James T. Kirk doesn’t pause
to explain the scientific basis for a phaser, even though it’s made-up future
tech; he simply shoots the Klingon. Roddenberry assumes that intelligent
viewers will grasp the weapon’s function in context ... and, of course, we do.
It’s therefore ludicrous to waste
time trying to impress us with a sound medical basis for what happens to
Adaline Bowman: a long-winded sermon we get not just once, but twice, before
this film is over. No surprise, then, that many patrons amid Tuesday evening’s
preview audience snickered quite loudly.
Grant us the willingness to take
it on faith, and move on,
fercryinoutloud.
Born to a working-class family in
San Francisco near the turn of the 20th century, Adaline (Lively) grows up to
enjoy an average life, marrying and bringing a daughter (christened Flemming)
into their happy little family. But then dual tragedy strikes: Her husband dies
in a construction accident, and then she skids out of control while trying to
drive amid a freak Northern California snowstorm.
The crash should have killed her,
but doesn’t. It has, however, changed her: She simply stops aging, destined to
remain 29 forever.
Years pass before she perceives
and then comprehends the magnitude of this unexpected gift, by which time
Flemming (Cate Richardson) is beginning to look more like Adaline’s sister,
than her daughter. But the country soon becomes embroiled in World War II, and
Adaline continues to skate under the radar, until the post-war paranoia of
McCarthy-era investigations.
Suddenly perceived as a
suspicious anomaly, Adaline narrowly escapes government intrusion; she
subsequently vows to change her identity and move to a radically new location
every decade. The price is emotionally crippling: no long-term friends or
lovers, and a reclusive, ordinary lifestyle that precludes any activity that
might bring her to the attention of photographers or journalists.
This back-story is sketched
economically via a flashback montage; the story focuses on Adaline in the here
and now. Deciding that enough time has passed, she has returned to San
Francisco with her most recent persona. She works in a library, and lives in a
modest apartment in the city’s Chinatown district; her only constant companion
is an adorable dog.
Her one good friend, rather
cleverly, is a blind pianist who entertains at posh city nightspots. Which is
where, at a New Year’s Eve ball, she meets cute with Ellis Jones (Huisman), a
charismatic, dot-com gazillionaire-turned-philanthropist who refuses to be
dissuaded by her practiced aloofness.
Flemming, now in her 80s (and
played with luminous charm by Ellen Burstyn), remains the only person who knows
her mother’s unusual secret. Flemming laments the isolated life that Adaline
has endured, and suggests that maybe it’s time to relax, and live a little.
Against her better judgment, Adaline allows herself to be drawn — however
tentatively — into Ellis’ life.
A decision, we figure, that can’t
end well.
Krieger devotes the totality of
his film’s lengthy second act to this blossoming relationship, and — to be fair
— it’s a sweet interlude. Lively is appropriately cautious, even apprehensive;
alternatively, she’s mischievously smug each time Adaline surprises Ellis (and
us) with the depth and breadth of her accumulated knowledge.
Imagine having the insatiable
curiosity and retention of a permanently 29-year-old mind: No wonder, then,
that Adaline is ferociously book-smart and speaks a multitude of languages.
Huisman, in turn, is radiantly
charming, his every move suggesting warmth, kindness and savoir-faire. Ellis is patient, calm but gently relentless; Adaline
simply can’t resist him. (No kidding. Wealthy, gorgeous, intelligent and
attentively devoted: Could the guy be
any more perfect?)
Harrison Ford and Kathy Baker pop
up in the third act, when Ellis takes Adaline to meet his parents, William and
Connie. Ford’s William is genial, gallant and endearingly flustered; it’s easy
to see where Ellis gets his charm. Baker, as always, is striking as a woman of
wisdom and grace.
The situation ... gets
interesting. About which I’ll say no more, except to note that the increasingly
irrational climax destroys all of the good will established during the far more
satisfying second act.
And, as a result, we start to
notice the narrative’s clumsy lapses. Did Flemming ever marry, or have a
family? There’s no evidence she did ... in which case, why not? What purpose is
served by the token appearance of Ellis’ sister, Kiki (Amanda Crew)? She
delivers one comment about how she no longer uses phones, because she doesn’t
trust the government/industrial complex, or some such nonsense: a wildly
out-of-left-field couple of sentences that just hang there.
After which, Kiki amounts to
virtually nothing.
Speaking further of tin-eared
dialogue, at one point William bizarrely comments on how “unusual” it is for a “beautiful
woman” to work in a library, as if to suggest that something must be wrong with
such a person. Say what?
And what, pray tell, is the point
of the comet whose return William has prophesized for decades? I know how
Goodloe and Paskowitz intend that
element to slot into their storyline, but the effort fails. Utterly. More incongruous
weirdness.
The Lionsgate press site includes
a series of nine posters that showcase Adaline “through the ages,” roughly
every decade from 1925 through 2014, as Lively models a series of gorgeous
outfits assembled by costume designer Angus Strathie (who won a well-deserved
Academy Award for 2001’s Moulin Rouge!).
Rest assured, Lively looks marvelous in every one of them, although we get only
the barest glimpse of several, during the film.
But these posters made me realize
how much more satisfying Adaline’s saga would have been, if presented in a miniseries
format that spent a leisurely hour or two with her persona during each decade.
Frankly, it might have made a fascinating TV show.
As a 110-minute movie, not so
much. Wrong director, incompetent writers.
Despite all their considerable
efforts, the sparks generated by Lively and Huisman fizzle and wink out, like a
spent fuse.
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