Beautiful Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively of the TV series Gossip Girl) was born on January 1st 1906 in San Francisco. Adaline Bowman is a normal, early 20th century woman who marries and has a child, but her husband is killed in an accident while building the Golden Gate Bridge. One day while driving, she has an accident that – with the aid of a lightning bolt – causes her to stop aging. This accident happens when she’s about 29, and so she’s frozen in time, never to grow old!
Fast forward to the year 2014, Adaline, under a new name Jenny, is working in the archive library at the S.F. Historical Preservation Society. Watching old films about the area, she thinks about her many lives under fake names from the 1940s to the 1960s, and finally our present day. Then at a New Year’s Eve party, she meets a rich, handsome guy named Ellis (Game of Throne’s Michiel Huisman).
She’s attracted to him but pushes him away, because Adaline is always afraid someone might reveal her secret to the world. And as a freak, scientists might want to experiment on her (which they once tried to do, with she managing to escape through the car boot!)
Really crushing on Ellis, Jenny shows him around historical spots in the city, and talks about events that she actually attended as if they are ancient history. Sadly, her daughter (Ellen Burstyn) is now old, and Adaline’s latest beloved pet – a King Charles spaniel – the last of many, many pet dogs has to be put down. Never aging can pretty much suck (because all your loved ones age and die, but you still remain – forever young, but with sad memories).
When Ellis takes Adaline to meet his parents (Star Wars’ Harrison Ford and Kathy Baker), it is as if lightning has struck again. Adaline knows Ellis’ dad from way back, and he certainly recognizes her! Will this turn of events stop her romance with Ellis? Can she finally commit to a guy without fear of sharing her weird secret with him?
You will have to find the answers to those questions by watching it yourself. Trust me, it will be well worth your while. I have seen it twice already, and will see it some more! It’s that great a movie – mysterious, refreshingly new with a totally different storyline -, different from anything you’ve seen before.
