A young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.A young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.A young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.
- Awards
- 1 win & 10 nominations
Peter J. Gray
- Clarence James Prescott
- (as Peter James Grey)
Izabel Pearce
- Flemming (Age 5)
- (as Izabel A. Pearce)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe story about the ships beneath San Francisco is true. Hundreds of ships were abandoned by hopeful gold miners. One fellow set up a salvage company, hauling some of them ashore and leaving some afloat to be used as storage units, boarding houses and even a jail and a church. The city needed to expand its acreage so that they could expand the harbor so they sold water lots. People would take an abandoned boat, scuttle it, and then claim the lot. To keep it they had to fill in the water by dumping rock, sand, and dirt. As it settled, much of it served to support the ships and many of the hulls were preserved largely intact. Decades later as underground utilities were being installed the ships were discovered. So far they have found some 500 of them. Much of downtown San Francisco was built on top of them,
- GoofsWhen she is pulled over near the beginning of the film, her driver's permit as a ZIP code on it, even though she was born in 1908 and the cop says she's 45, making it 1953. ZIP codes were not introduced until 1963.
- Quotes
Adaline Bowman: Tell me something I can hold on to forever and never let go.
Ellis Jones: Let go.
- SoundtracksSince I Don't Have You
Written by Jimmy Beaumont (as James Beaumont), Wally Lester (as Walter Lester), Joseph Rock, Jack Taylor (as John Taylor), Joe Verscharen (as Joseph Verscharen), and Janet Vogel
Performed by The Skyliners
Courtesy of The Bicycle Music Company
Featured review
This is a standard love story drama. It could have been so much more, but the actors could only take what they're given so far.
The writers/etc could have turned the age element of the movie into something truly unique, and explored the interesting angles it offers (is it possible to have many 'true loves'? How would a wizened woman of many years express herself whilst encased in the body of a late twenties young woman? How would she act in critical situations which faze less experienced people? How would she keep up with the times? What jobs or knowledge would she focus on? How would she nurture the legacy she leaves behind in the form of her sons and daughters?).
Instead, the movie went for the superficial, flimsy, easy options (examples: she's great at navigating traffic because she's had decades to learn the city's shortcuts, she wears a lot of old-cut clothing), and turned the main protagonist into a ditsy ditherer at key moments that needed a more delicate and refined touch (her attitude when being chatted up at parties, her car breaking down, meeting her lover's family for the first time). Even the jobs she has and the skills she's acquired are just sort of padding and not really explored despite being a key choice she's made.
Basically, the whole movie focuses on the love story between this protagonist and her new boyfriend despite already having a potentially very interesting female lead character that could have been developed so much more elegantly; a new boyfriend might be a part of that, that makes sense... but it took up far too much of the film's focus when there were other topics that needed some development too. It felt like a feast of potentially interesting avenues were hinted at in the writing, and yet the main route taken was the typical stereotype love story. Why bother kicking off the story with such an interesting twist if it just becomes part of the backdrop and doesn't influence the characters' behaviour?
That leads me onto a final point which made me increasingly uncomfortable when watching the film – the way the male lead character pressures and pushes the lead protagonist into going out with him is a bit unnerving. He publicly pressures her into having a photo taken in front of her colleagues when she's clearly unsettled by it, and then offers her a way out: go on a date with him. Hm. They part ways. Then later on he finds out her address (via her workplace?!) which she wanted to keep private, and just pops up to stalk her a bit more. The first half of their dynamic is her pushing him away, placating him, etc. and him being far too full on – it's not romantic, it's really creepy to see, and it's another point where I think a woman of over 100 wouldn't behave in the "no doesn't really mean no" ditsy schoolgirl manner, which quite frankly was a bit weird. It made me uncomfortable watching it when supposedly the movie's main intention was to make me think this new relationship was "cute". It wasn't. It was just stalker-ish!
The writers/etc could have turned the age element of the movie into something truly unique, and explored the interesting angles it offers (is it possible to have many 'true loves'? How would a wizened woman of many years express herself whilst encased in the body of a late twenties young woman? How would she act in critical situations which faze less experienced people? How would she keep up with the times? What jobs or knowledge would she focus on? How would she nurture the legacy she leaves behind in the form of her sons and daughters?).
Instead, the movie went for the superficial, flimsy, easy options (examples: she's great at navigating traffic because she's had decades to learn the city's shortcuts, she wears a lot of old-cut clothing), and turned the main protagonist into a ditsy ditherer at key moments that needed a more delicate and refined touch (her attitude when being chatted up at parties, her car breaking down, meeting her lover's family for the first time). Even the jobs she has and the skills she's acquired are just sort of padding and not really explored despite being a key choice she's made.
Basically, the whole movie focuses on the love story between this protagonist and her new boyfriend despite already having a potentially very interesting female lead character that could have been developed so much more elegantly; a new boyfriend might be a part of that, that makes sense... but it took up far too much of the film's focus when there were other topics that needed some development too. It felt like a feast of potentially interesting avenues were hinted at in the writing, and yet the main route taken was the typical stereotype love story. Why bother kicking off the story with such an interesting twist if it just becomes part of the backdrop and doesn't influence the characters' behaviour?
That leads me onto a final point which made me increasingly uncomfortable when watching the film – the way the male lead character pressures and pushes the lead protagonist into going out with him is a bit unnerving. He publicly pressures her into having a photo taken in front of her colleagues when she's clearly unsettled by it, and then offers her a way out: go on a date with him. Hm. They part ways. Then later on he finds out her address (via her workplace?!) which she wanted to keep private, and just pops up to stalk her a bit more. The first half of their dynamic is her pushing him away, placating him, etc. and him being far too full on – it's not romantic, it's really creepy to see, and it's another point where I think a woman of over 100 wouldn't behave in the "no doesn't really mean no" ditsy schoolgirl manner, which quite frankly was a bit weird. It made me uncomfortable watching it when supposedly the movie's main intention was to make me think this new relationship was "cute". It wasn't. It was just stalker-ish!
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- El secreto de Adaline
- Filming locations
- Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada(San Francisco)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $25,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $42,629,776
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $13,203,458
- Apr 26, 2015
- Gross worldwide
- $65,663,276
- Runtime1 hour 52 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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