Caroline Schwarm: Assignment 2

Adaline, age 29, gets into a car crash during a lightning storm and miraculously survives, yet stops aging. She stays alive for over eight decades. The movie starts by showing Adaline buying a fake Id. While finding an old film reel, her life is explained. As her daughter grows older she notices something is wrong with her, and people are getting suspicious. The FBI attempt to kidnap her, yet she escapes. She vowed to spend her life on the run with a new identity every decade. At a New Years Eve party, Adaline sees a young man at a distance, who is named Ellis. While leaving, he jumps in her elevator, attempting to ask her out on a date. Adaline politely declines as she is leaving town soon to live a new identity. She sees him the next day at her work place, and he convinces her to go out with him one time. They go to a tunnel beneath San Francisco. She gets scared of commitment and has a flashback of an unknown previous lover holding an engagement ring. She doesn’t go to meet him. She has anxiety about Ellis but has a change in heart. She meets his dad, who immediately looks shocked and says “Adaline?” She brushes it off saying that is her mother. Ellis’ father doesn’t fully accept it. Adaline has another flashback, which confirms that the man in her previous thoughts was Ellis’ father. Ellis’ father realizes her scar on her forehead and immediately knows. Adaline runs when she knows he’s figured it out. Adaline calls her daughter and decides she’s tired of running, and turns back. As she’s driving back around, a tow truck hits her and drives off. Snow is falling and Ellis see’s that it’s her lying in the ditch. She wakes up in a hospital and tells Ellis everything. One year later, they both go to a New Years Eve party, but while Adaline is looking in the mirror, she spots a grey hair, confirming that she is cured.
The tone of the movie is very soft and romantic. Adaline voice throughout the whole film is very calm and quiet which adds to the romantic tone. The colors are neutral with mostly faded greens, yellows, and blues. The locations are all eloquent, like the Golden Gate Bridge, fancy ballrooms, beautiful forests, and mountain sides. The cinematography enhances these locations, along with the color palette. The style is vintage because Adaline is meant to represent a character from the early 1900’s. She still wears the fashion worn back then, with a modern take. Her apartment is also a representation of her past, keeping old photos from her film camera, a box of film reels, and vintage chandeliers in every room.

Five Words:
Vintage
Romantic
Stuck
Changing
Mysterious

This film is a vintage romantic story about Adaline Bowman who is stuck at the age of 29 and constantly changing her identity because of her mysterious condition.