The Age of Adaline

Posted on April 23, 2015 at 5:59 pm

Be careful what you wish for. You think it would be great to stay 29 forever? Adaline (Blake Lively) finds out that it is not great to become unstuck from time, to watch everyone you love grow old and die, to hurt those you care about because you cannot be honest about who you are. It is as though the whole world is on a conveyer belt moving everyone inexorably forward, and just one person has stepped off, rooted in one spot and left all alone. Life becomes a series of goodbyes.

Adaline made headlines as the first baby born in 1908 San Francisco. She lived a normal life, with an engineer husband and a baby girl. But her husband was killed in an accident when he was working on the Golden Gate Bridge. And then, when a very rare snowfall came to San Francisco, her car went off the road and into a pond. She was at the same time frozen and shocked by lightning. And, we are told by the narrator, as scientists will discover in 2015, the effect of these two forces on her DNA somehow stops the aging process. At first, she is able to get away with explaining that she eats right and uses a very good face cream. But as more than a decade goes by and she does not change, she begins to unsettle people and attract the attention of government investigators. So, she has to say goodbye to her now-teenage daughter and come up with a plan where she changes identities and locations every ten years, and never gets close to anyone.

Adaline is living in San Francisco as Jenny and working at a library, but is about to switch identities again and move to Oregon. She has just bought a new fake passport and drivers license and arranged for her new identity to have access to her bank account (one thing perpetual youth is very good for is accumulating capital) when she meets Ellis (Dutch “Game of Thrones” dreamboat Michiel Huisman). He is handsome, wealthy, philanthropic, nuts about her, and knows how to give swooningly romantic gifts and cook charming and delicious dinners in his aw-shucks-I’m-just-living-in-a-zillion-dollar-fixer-upper. Doesn’t Adaline have the right to take a chance on love?

She agrees to spend the weekend with Ellis’ parents for their 40th anniversary party. But as soon as they arrive, Ellis’ father, William (Harrison Ford) says “Adaline!” They were “very close” in the 1960’s. “Jenny” explains that Adaline was her mother. But William remembers Adaline too well to be fooled for long.

The script and story were both co-written by first-time screenwriter Salvador Paskowitz, whose own unconventional life was documented in Surfwise.

It has a conceptual delicacy that translates unevenly on screen, with an overly ponderous omniscient narrator and underwritten romantic scenes. But Lively gives a thoughtful, complex performance, with undertones of melancholy and a yearning for connection that struggles with her determination to stay isolated. And she looks sensational in the costumes from Angus Strathie, which show a consistency of style throughout the century that shows us how strong and determined Adaline’s well-defined persona is, despite the various aliases and disguises and changes in fashion.

The romanticism of the storyline was thrown off course for me by the idea that Adaline was involved with both father and son, even decades apart. But if that does not create too much of an ick factor, the bittersweet fantasy of eternal youth and the just-sweet fantasy of the perfect boyfriend make it work.

Parents should know that this film includes sexual references and non-explicit situations, some mature themes of loss and disappointment, and drinking.

Family discussion: What did the comet signify? If you could stay the same age forever, what age would you pick? Is there a “just-miss” in your life?

If you like this, try: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Passion of Mind,” and “Tuck Everlasting”

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Trailer: I’ll See You in My Dreams with Blythe Danner

Posted on April 10, 2015 at 8:00 am

Blythe Danner is the American equivalent to Helen Mirren — endlessly elegant, witty, radiant. I can’t wait to see this film, which shares its name with the Gus Kahn song and the biopic about Gus Kahn starring Danny Thomas and Doris Day.

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Romance Trailers, Previews, and Clips

The Longest Ride

Posted on April 9, 2015 at 5:53 pm

Another spring, another Nicholas Sparks movie.

I don’t mind (much) that they are so rigidly formulaic. Every one of them centers on (1) water, (2) letters, and (3) somebody dying. All genre films follow some sort of formula, and we buy tickets because we want to see what we expect to see.

I don’t mind (much) the paper-thin characters and corny dialog. I don’t mind the preposterous plot turns. Much. Or the soft-focus romp on the beach and the cinematography that looks like the camera lens was dipped in honey. And okay, yes, I had to pull out my handkerchief.

Here’s what I do mind: the unrelenting generic blandness of “The Longest Ride.” And what I really mind: the unrelenting length of “The Longest Ride,” which makes its title unfortunately apt.

The most interesting part of the film is that four of its stars come from legendary show business families. The movie I’d like to see is them sitting around off camera talking to each other.

Scott Eastwood, the look-alike but even handsomer son of Clint Eastwood, plays Luke, a 21st century cowboy who grew up on a ranch is making a return to a career of competitive bull-riding, following serious injuries a year before. Britt Robertson (who is pretty much the only one in the cast with no famous relatives) is Sophia, the studious art student with a prestigious internship at a New York art gallery starting in two months. They meet sorta cute when her sorority sister drags her away from her books to see the bull-riding and Luke’s hat falls more or less into her lap. Later, when he asks her on a date, she is all but unfamiliar with this quaint custom. What, you mean he wants to pick her up? And have plans? And not just text here “Wanna hang out?” Ladies, he even arrives with flowers, to the collective sighs of the entire sorority house.

But the dream date gets even better after that. Not only is the dinner another wildly romantic gesture (yes, involving a body of water — this is a very wet movie, even by Sparks standards), but Luke actually rescues an old guy from a car wreck just before it explodes in flames, thus completing the trifecta of movie-boyfriend perfection. The ladies in the audience sighed even more happily than the sorority girls. The guy he rescues turns out to be Ira (Alan Alda, son of Broadway legend Robert Alda). And, ding, ding, ding, there are letters! Sophia rescues a basket of old letters from the car just before it blows up, and when Ira starts to recover she begins to read them to him. These are letters he wrote to his beloved late wife, Ruth, even when they were actually together. Sparks really, really, really likes to get letters into the story, even if it does not make much sense. Cue the flashbacks. Sparks loooves parallel love stories.

Ira (now Jack Huston, of the multiply-Oscared Huston family) falls for Viennese immigrant Ruth (Oona Chaplin, who wins the gene pool lottery with both Charlie Chaplin and Eugene O’Neill in her family tree). The conflict they face is that she wants to have a lot of children and he is wounded in WWII risking his life to save another soldier and cannot father children. (Sparks finds a way to let us know that the problem relates to fertility only, not the Jake Barnes/Sun Also Rises problem.)

This section is mildly interesting though too reminiscent of the vastly better portrayal of the life of a marriage in the first ten minutes of “Up.”

Listening to Ira’s letters helps Sophia think about what it takes to make a relationship work, blah blah. Blah.

Oh, it’s okay. It does the job. It doesn’t kill off the wrong person like some Sparks stories or Gothika rule the ending like “Safe Haven.” It is good to see Sparks include characters who are not imaginarily typical middle-class white Christians — there’s even a consultant in Jewish culture listed in the credits. There are no obvious mistakes, but unsurprisingly the portrayal feels no more authentic than the rest of the film.

But as it drags on, it is impossible to overlook the fact that there is more of interest outside the frame than inside. Sophia’s friend Marcia (Melissa Benoist, “Whiplash,” “Danny Collins,” and the soon-to-be Supergirl) would have been much better as the lead than Robertson, whose most frequent response is a cute little laugh, with a couple of slight brow wrinkles thrown in to show concern or confusion. The briefly referenced story of Black Mountain College’s famous experiment in art is much more intriguing than Ruth’s purchases of paintings and the twist at the end, while it will not surprise most people, requires some unjustifiable misdirection.

Sparks has a formula that is safe in its predictability. There’s always a place for movies about pretty people kissing. But it is time for Sparks to try something new, and maybe time for audiences to try something new, too.

Parents should know that this film has some strong language, a WWII battle, bull-riding peril, characters injured, sad deaths, nudity and sexual situations.

Family discussion: Were you surprised at what Ira said to Ruth when she left? Was Luke’s mother right about the reasons he would not quit?

If you like this, try: “Dear John,” “The Notebook,” and “Nights in Rodanthe”

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Based on a book Romance

Trailer: Simon Pegg and Lake Bell in “Man Up”

Posted on March 24, 2015 at 8:00 am

Danny Collins

Posted on March 19, 2015 at 5:50 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, drug use and some nudity
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations, illness
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 20, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	June 29, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00UZJO7UA

Movie stories often begin with the hero or heroine having everything and then losing it or having nothing and then finding it. But some of the best combine them both, as Writer/director Dan Fogelman (“Cars,” “Tangled,” “Crazy Stupid Love”) has with “Danny Collins,” a heartwarming story of a one time rock star (Al Pacino) who can fill a stadium with his baby boomer fans but has an empty life that even a hot young fiancee and constant partying cannot hide.

And then he discovers that 40 years ago, when he admitted in an interview that he was afraid of becoming successful because it might impair his integrity as an artist, John Lennon sent him a letter saying that it did not have to happen that way and encouraging him to call. The letter never reached him until four decades later, when Collins’ longtime manager and best friend (Christopher Plummer) found it from a collector and bought it as a surprise birthday gift. (This part of the story is inspired by a real-life musician in the UK who did find out 34 years after it was written that John Lennon had sent him a letter almost identical to the one in the film, as we see in the closing credits.)

The letter serves as a wake-up call, instantly connecting Danny to the musician he once was. He cancels his tour, breaks up with the fiancee, and orders his private plane to New Jersey, where he moves into a suburban hotel managed by Mary (a deliciously crisp Annette Bening). He buys a new piano and has it delivered to his hotel room so he can start composing. And he reaches out to the son he has never met (Bobby Cannavale), who lives in New Jersey with his pregnant wife (Jennifer Garner) and young daughter (the delightful Giselle Eisenberg).

It is a treat to see the flamboyant rock star being checked into the numbingly generic hotel by an agog college student (Melissa Benoist of “Whiplash” and the Supergirl TV series) as stunning a transition for him as if he was Alice through the Looking Glass. Pacino is not entirely convincing as a rock star on stage but his genially raffish charm is as endearing to us as it is to the civilians he charms along the way. The highlight of the film is what he calls his “patter” with Mary, a sparkling throwback to the kind of romantic banter that might have been tossed back and forth by Tracy and Hepburn.

Immune to his charm, at least at first, is his son, even after Danny performs some rock star magic to help the family. But that’s what movies are for — to let us see Danny overcome his son’s efforts not to give in, all to the tune of some of Lennon’s most moving songs. And to wonder what we might do differently if we got a long-lost letter from Lennon.

Note: Danny’s catchy song, “Hey Baby Doll” was written by INXS replacement frontman Ciaran Gribbin, selected in a competition with top Hollywood songwriters for a tune that could sound like a real hit from the 60’s.

Parents should know that this film includes rock star behavior including sexual references and nudity, drinking and drug use, and very strong language, as well as family issues including abandonment and illness.

Family discussion: Who would you most like to get a letter from and what would you want it to say? Why did getting the letter make Danny decide to change his life? How often do get to enjoy patter?

If you like this, try: “One Trick Pony” and “The Last Waltz”