For all our fantasies about immortality and the millions we spend on anti-aging serums, Hollywood likes to keep reminding us of the pitfalls of never growing old. There’s the youth novel-cum-movie Tuck Everlasting, about the tribulations brought forth by a fountain of immortality. There are the persecuted immortal children of the Twilight series and the old friends of Cocoon who must decide whether to live forever on the planet Antarea. Now there’s Age of Adaline, an epic drama about a woman whose body is frozen in time as the world spins on without her.
Adaline Bowman, played by Blake Lively, leads a normal life from the time of her birth in 1908 until a car accident in 1935, during which some mysterious phenomenon renders her incapable of aging. She’s forced to change her identity as relationships become impossible to sustain and her children grow old without her (her daughter is played by the 81-year-old Ellen Burstyn).
Directed by Lee Toland Krieger (Celeste and Jesse Forever) and co-starring Harrison Ford and Amanda Crew, Age of Adaline hits theaters on April 24, 2015.
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Write to Eliza Berman at eliza.berman@time.com