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The Age of Adaline
Year - 2015
Studio - Lakeshore Entertainment, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Sierra / Affinity
Stars - Blake Lively, Michael Huisman, Harrison Ford, Amanda Crew, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Harmon, Kathy Baker
Director - Lee Toland Krieger
Writing Credits - J. Mills Goodloe, Salvadore Paskowitz (story and screenplay)
Music - Rob Simonsen
Synopsis
Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively), born in early 20th Century San Francisco, is left a widow at age 29 with her daughter, Flemming. As she drives through a rare snowfall in the northern California countryside, her car skids out of control and goes into an icy river. Her body temperature lowers, her breathing stops, and a lightning bolt strikes her sunken auto. But she is rescued and revived, with the effect that her body will no longer age; physiologically, she will remain 29. (The narration explains that this scientific phenomenon won't be discovered for nearly 100 years.)
Her condition results in major consequences to her life. She cannot have romantic attachments with men who will obviously age as she remains young. She moves and changes her identity every ten years, not revealing her situation to others for fear of becoming a scientific specimen. During the McCarthy era of the 1950s she is nearly abducted by the FBI who can find no background information on her. Using the name, "Jennifer Lawson", she works at the San Francisco Historical Society and, there, a wealthy young patron, Ellis Jones (Michael Huisman) is attracted to her beauty and her mystery. Adaline struggles with her feelings about him, as she attempts to rebuff his advances.
Ellis convinces Jennifer/Adaline to accompany him to his parents home who are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. But when they arrive, Ellis's father, William (Harrison Ford) looks at her in amazement and recognition as the woman he'd been in love with many years ago as a young medical student, but who had disappeared before he was able to propose marriage. Adaline tells him that it was her mother he remembers.
Later, when William sees a scar on Adaline's hand, he remembers how he had she had suffered a bad cut those many years ago, and he had sutured it. He confronts her, and Adaline admits the truth. She leaves Ellis a goodbye note, and starts back to the city. But her car is struck by a truck, and Adaline is left near death. Ellis, having pursued her, arrives and attempts CPR. Then paramedics jolt her heart with a defibrillator, bringing her back to life.
At the hospital, Adaline confesses her secret to Ellis. Her daughter, Flemming (Ellen Burstyn), now in her 80s, arrives and introduces herself as Adaline's great grandmother, but Adaline assures her that Ellis knows the truth. One year later, as the married couple are preparing to go out, Adaline discovers that she has a gray hair. The trauma of her resuscitation had caused the aging process to resume.