The Age of Adaline
Lionsgate | Release Date: April 24, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
23
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Movie NationRoger MooreApr 22, 2015
Ford, in a performance as affecting as any he’s ever given, lifts this romance in ways we never see coming. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleWilliam GossApr 22, 2015
Lively’s performance grows more engaging as her facade finally begins to crack, and Huisman serves as a sufficiently handsome foil throughout, but if anyone rises to the occasion, it’s Harrison Ford as a former flame reunited with Adaline through a perverse twist of fate. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 24, 2015
Ford's voice — always deep, lowered an octave by age and one more by William's longing — is even more powerful. This is Ford's best performance since "The Fugitive," maybe since "Witness." Read full review
75
New York PostKyle SmithApr 23, 2015
The film is as tender and endearing as a lamb, a lamb at rest in a fragrant atmosphere. It’s a film that has a determined, unironic respect for things past. It’s as if millennial hipsterism, with its feigned fascination for all things retro, took a surprising further step: actual respect for learning, for experience, for wisdom. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattApr 22, 2015
Lively looks fantastic in every era’s fashion as it passes, and she does a nice job of conveying Adaline’s old-world diction and reserve; there’s no Gossip in this girl. Read full review
70
The DissolveGenevieve KoskiApr 23, 2015
Like its main character, Age Of Adaline is a movie out of time, mannered and unconcerned with current trends, and hopelessly unhip. But it’s also beautiful and refreshing in its own earnest, straightforward way. For as ridiculous as Age Of Adaline appears on the surface, it’s surprisingly refined and poised in its execution. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 23, 2015
The movie runs the risk of coming off as misogynistic tripe, especially considering it was written by two men and directed by another. Somehow it avoids that fate, rising to the level of a serviceable YA fantasy about the way mortality gives meaning to life. Read full review
60
Paste MagazineScott WoldApr 3, 2018
Maybe there is, in fact, something inherently valuable in producing a sincere effort of escapism, to transport the audience to a different, less cynical, arguably “better” time. But when the audience is collectively checking their watches, it’s probably not a good sign. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTrevor JohnstonMay 5, 2015
By far the film’s best move is casting some lovable veteran actors. Ellen Burstyn is adorable as Adaline’s daughter and Harrison Ford steals the show as an old-timer with an instinct for saying the wrong thing. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 23, 2015
Not "An Affair to Remember," mind you, but a welcome change from the Nicholas Sparks brand of mush that has overtaken the hearts-and-flowers corner of movieland. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsKatherine PushkarApr 23, 2015
Plausibility, shmausibility. This is pretty schmaltz done right. Read full review
60
The GuardianJordan HoffmanApr 22, 2015
Age of Adaline, which starts off looking like a frothy series of excuses to put Blake Lively in some fabulously timeless gowns, ends up an emotional and even bold chamber drama. Its ending is ludicrous, but also perfect, and I’d be lying if I didn’t get a little choked up. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangApr 21, 2015
A sensitively directed slab of romantic hokum that wrings an impressive amount of emotional conviction from a thoroughly ludicrous premise. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 24, 2015
The Age of Adaline, for its part, delivers the twists and turns of its fantastical plot with elegance and confidence. Here, the weak romance threatens to bring everything down. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniApr 24, 2015
Sadly, director Lee Toland Krieger's offering, a weak wanna-be Jean Cocteau-esque fable with magical realist pretensions, does great disservice to Lively and her remarkably accomplished costars. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Nathalie AtkinsonApr 23, 2015
In a wink to Canada, the most urgent emotion is a throwaway bit in the movie when they bicker on whether to call the board game’s plastic scoring piece a wedge, cheese or pie, an indelible argument for the ages. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 23, 2015
The director Lee Toland Krieger is good with actors, especially in the expression of a low-key, unforced intimacy. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 23, 2015
Haphazardly plotted, it not only falls prey to absolute predictability but chooses to have nearly every important conversation (except one) occur off-screen. That sort of laziness is unacceptable and results in a strong sense of audience dissatisfaction. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonApr 23, 2015
The problem for Mr. Krieger is that his film has been trying to dazzle us with all manner of sleight of hand and hokum and now undertakes the construction of a conventional romance. The movie starts spinning its wheels. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 23, 2015
The story feels like a less complicated companion to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Obvious logical questions are ignored. For instance, if she remains 29, does that make her immortal? Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryApr 23, 2015
The Age of Adaline works best as a simple story of boy meets girl; girl falls in love; girl mulls whether or not to reveal that she’ll stay young forever. Everything else is just a lot of unnecessary noise. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 23, 2015
Lee Toland Krieger's film masquerades for a while as a romantic drama brainier than most, getting good mileage out of an intriguingly odd performance from Blake Lively. But ultimately, the movie relies far too much on contrivance and coincidence. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 23, 2015
Like its heroine, The Age of Adaline is afraid of its emotions, and stuck flat-footed in time. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 23, 2015
Starved of sufficient comedy or drama, The Age of Adaline is a pipsqueak. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleApr 23, 2015
The Age of Adaline is a modern romantic fairy tale set in San Francisco, marred by bad narration and an unnecessary desire to overexplain random magic. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerApr 22, 2015
For a movie that emulates literature, The Age Of Adaline never fits comfortably into a particular form — literary or cinematic. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezApr 22, 2015
Less a sincerely kooky elegy to lost time than a slightly off-kilter acting out of familiar rom-com bona fides about commitment-phobes missing out on life. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJon FroschApr 21, 2015
An elegantly confected cream puff of a melodrama, The Age of Adaline plays like an exercise in handling a preposterous story, booby-trapped for maximal ridiculousness, with tasteful conviction. Far from the bloated tearjerker suggested by the trailer, the film is pleasant, respectable and a bit dull, reining in the inherent silliness of its material and taking few risks. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonApr 21, 2015
Hits all the expected emotional beats but doesn’t take many risks or glean sufficient insights about our fascination with the double-edged sword of eternal youth. Read full review
40
TheWrapApr 21, 2015
The Age of Adaline begins with such a wackadoo premise that you wish the filmmakers would commit to the nuttiness, or at least explore and explain how its weird world works. Instead, Adaline’s forever-29 status just sprinkles some cheese on a timid and unimaginative, if stylishly framed, romance. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApr 23, 2015
Someone should steal this concept and make a decent movie out of it. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 23, 2015
A stunningly wrong-footed journey that begins with an attempt at bittersweet magic and ends on a series of sour and increasingly dopey notes. Read full review
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