The Age of Adaline (2015)

The narrator explains Adaline’s condition with the confidence of a science teacher and the facts of a horoscope. Lightning, cold water, something about electrons, and she stops aging. Fairy tales don’t need lab results. The bigger problem is Ellis, a dreamy philanthropist with all the personality of a neatly folded sweater, and the romance at the center never catches. Blake Lively is better than the script. She plays Adaline as a woman with old manners and older loneliness, crushing everybody at trivia because she lived through the answers. Then Harrison Ford shows up as Ellis’s dad, and the whole movie sits up straight. One stunned look from him does more than an hour of the love story. Ellen Burstyn, playing a daughter who looks older than her mom, gets the best scenes and too few of them. It made $65.7 million worldwide on a reported $25M. A 5.3 because Lively and Ford are lovely and the love story is beige. $55.95 says you find one gray hair this month and decide it makes you look mysterious.

What works: Lively’s old-soul poise, Ellen Burstyn’s tender scenes as her daughter, and Harrison Ford’s quietly shaken reaction that gives the film its only real jolt.

What doesn’t: Ellis is a bland dream boyfriend, and the narrator’s made-up science keeps interrupting the mood.

Who it’s for: Romantics who like a slow, pretty fantasy and don’t mind a love story with the brakes on.