Age of Adaline’ Review of the romantic drama ‘The Longest Ride’ Review of the film based on the book by Nicholas Sparks

Film Fails to Achieve Depth, Emotion

“The Age of Adaline” fell short of expectations as a romance about a woman who has remained 29 years old for the past 80 years.

BY SOPHIE NEDELCO REPORTER

A phenomenon was occurring in 1937 California: snow. The frosty air bit at 29-year-old Adaline Bowman’s pristine hands as she gripped the steering wheel. But minutes after starting her car, she was found lying next to it in a stream. Body temperature lowered and heart stopped, Bowman had died in a crash. But the story did not end there; as a lightning bolt struck the river and defibrillated her heart, Bowman was resurrected and the magic began. Because of this medical miracle, she was rendered immortal. The same hands that held onto the wheel moments before would cease to age for nearly eight decades in this disappointing and farfrom-magical romance, “The Age of Adaline.”

For Bowman, the fact that she would never age again troubled her. She scoured medical libraries searching for answers she would never find. Determined to steer clear of the label of a scientific curiosity, Bowman turned to decades of fake I.D.’s and changes in location. The film begins in present time with Bowman seeking out a new I.D. and preparing to move to Oregon to continue concealing her identity. Her daughter (Ellen Burstyn), born before the accident, now appears triple her age. BY CHLOE BARRETT REPORTER

Easy to follow, simple to enjoy, and unambitious, “The Longest Ride” is conventional with a twist: two stories instead of one. The latest Nicholas Sparks novel-turned-movie, is a lightly wrapped, commercially popular gift: an enjoyable romance. The story is packaged, wrapped nicely and tied with a neat little bow, and shipped directly to the viewers’ hearts in Sparks’ traditional way.

Professional bull-rider Luke, played by Scott Eastwood, oozes country charm and is looking to make a comeback after a serious injury while Sophia, played by Britt Robertson, is a soon-tobe college graduate preparing for a prestigious internship at an art gallery in New York. They meet when Sophia rescues Luke’s cowboy hat from being trampled on the dirt floor of his bullriding competition, which Sophia is forced by her friends to attend. Although she is reluctant to start a relationship, she relents and says ‘yes’ to a date.

After their first date, they encounter a crashed car and rescue the old man inside, Ira, played by Alan Alda, as well as the wicker box he insists they

Blake Lively and Michiel Huisman star in “The Age of Adaline.”(Photo by MCT Campus)

Bowman struggles with her inability to form deep relationships with anyone other than her dog without the risk of revealing her condition. But as she celebrates at a New Year’s Eve party with her blind friend, she, of course, catches the eye of a charming young man named Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman) from across the room.

What follows, well, can be derived from simply watching the trailer. The movie rarely shifts from its predicted plotline and fosters some uncomfortable moments between Jones’ father, William Jones (Harrison Ford), and Bowman when it becomes clear there is history between the two- literal history that goes back to before Jones was born.

As Bowman experienced a fascinating range of American history, it was disappointing to find that “The Age of Adaline” did a poor job of must save. Sophia grows close to Ira as she visits him, and upon her discovery of the contents of the box - old letters addressed to his late wife Ruth - she reads them aloud to him. As Ruth and Ira’s story is revisited, Luke and Sophia’s is just beginning to unfold.

Of course, no Nicholas Sparks work is complete without letters to drive a plot along. This is just what Ira’s letters do, interweaving Ira and Ruth’s story with that of Luke and Sophia. As Sophia reads the letters aloud, the story shifts to another time, first the 1940s, then on to the 1950s and 1960s with each new letter. It is in this time that the story of a younger Ira, played by Jack Huston, and his late wife Ruth played by Oona Chaplin, is told.

The two relationships follow a similar pace, as they learn that love does not come without sacrifice. They easily fall in love and then fall challenges along similar points in the movie, but the story is prevented from being redundant as their challenges are so dissimilar because of the differing eras.

However, the issues Ira and Ruth deal with are much more resonating. Chaplin and Huston have a strong connection and skillfully relate the audience to the hardships Ruth and Ira face, including separation during World War II and the struggles of infertility in the time of the postwar baby boom. WATCH

To see the trailer of the movie, visit lejournallive.com.

PG-13

revealing the wisdom and perspective she might have gained from living through events such as the Great Depression, World War II, and civil rights movements. With an expectation for the movie to choose a side between highlighting a sophisticated woman and providing the current American public with yet another unrealistic love story, it was awkward to watch the movie’s attempt to fulfill both aspects.

For a movie that reeked of potential, much of this was crushed in the forced storyline, Lively’s stiff acting and strained symbolism. The movie was a mere shadow of what it could’ve been, although it succeeds in confirming that immortality may not be as glamourous as expected and that we should instead embrace cliché adages and “live this year as

Timeless Classic Captivates

The latest Nicholas Sparks movie interweaves the past with the present as two love stories unfold in different times.

12LE JOURNAL MARCH

though it were [our] last.”

Photo courtesy Michael Tackett

They are more deeply connected and their story more deeply affecting.

While Ira and Ruth deal with heavy outside forces, Sophia and Luke face problems created among themselves- conflicting hopes for the future, where each has a choice to make. Robertson and Eastwood portray Sophia and Luke as a couple of a lighter mode and with a lessened severity of subject.

“The Longest Ride” is a romantic’s movie. It is not the best of the Nicholas Sparks franchise, but it is engaging and entertaining and fits in as one of higher rank. It delivers just what one would want out of it, a movie filled with romance and drama and equal parts country and historical to taste.

Rating: 3 cowboy hats.