The Age of Adaline seems like the usual romance tale. And it is in the usual formatting of girl meets boy. However, The Age of Adaline has an unsuspected element of deep love for family and real human truths of life and fear.

The movie opens with a young-looking woman, who you realize is Adaline (Blake Lively), getting a fake I.D. When she goes to her place of employment, the library, looking through an old film reel, her life story is unfolded, all from the story-telling abilities of the Narrator (Hugh Ross)who explains everything in a play by play which is very unique to the story.

Adaline is a woman who does not age and has been alive for decades, stuck in her 20s. She has lived her life away from people until on her birthday, she meets Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman). Further on in the film, you see every time she has ever run away from a situation when she has stayed for too long. You see how it affects her current relationship with Ellis. Further twists in the story continue when Adaline’s past continues to haunt her relationship in the present.

Adaline has to learn to let go of the past and old fears and live in the moment with what is right in front of her. There are immortal truths to humanity. If you never age, if you never grow, and if you are always reminded of the past, then it will control your future and old fears will never die.

In Adaline, some good points were the truths they had in the film. One was at the very beginning of the film, when Adaline ran away for her daughter. She put the well being of her daughter above her need to be near her. In the car the scene was filmed so beautifully that the viewer could connect with Adaline’s pain and the pain of her daughter.

In the next scene when Adaline is with her friend Regan, (Lynda Boyd) who is blind, you see another truth. That no one, no matter how hard their will is, can stay alone forever. Adaline gives in to the one person who she can truly be herself with.

And the last truth is when she tells a young William Jones (younger version played by Anthony Ingruber and older version played by Harrison Ford) her real name. When she does this, the narrator states it is her one mistake. The truth in this is that no one is perfect. And it is part of human nature to make mistakes, even if you are a human who has been alive for 110 years.

This movie all in all is a chick flick. It is sappy and romantic, but it is also true and raw, which is a quality a lot of romance films lack.

Rating: A-

Time: 112 min

Is rated PG-13