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Despite the current state of prestige television, which is drawing A-list film actors to the small screen in droves, actors who gained fame on TV still make bold attempts to reach a higher state of credibility by nailing leading roles in movies. Blake Lively, who made a name for herself by playing the Upper East Side socialite Serena van der Woodsen for six seasons on the teen soap opera Gossip Girl. Now she’s poised to become as successful as a leading lady with her starring role in The Age of Adaline, which opens in theaters today.
Lively stars as the titular Adaline, a woman who is blessed (or cursed? You never know with these things!) with immortality, remaining physically and mentally 29 for eight decades. Throughout her life she has casual relationships with men, but, since they will age and she will not, they remain fleeting and distant. That all changes when she falls in love with a dashing man named Ellis (played by Game of Thrones hottie Michiel Huisman), and decides to get serious — serious enough to meet his parents. In a surprising (or not) twist, Ellis’ father, William (played by Harrison Ford, naturally paired once again with a woman half his age), is a former flame of Adaline’s.
It’s a preposterous Benjamin Buttonish plot, with the added subtext of a Hollywood ideal that no woman turn 30 (otherwise, she’d shrivel up and die). Luckily, Lively herself is 27 — she blessedly gained early fame from her Gossip Girl days in her early 20s. But does she have the star power to transfer that to a film career?
The actress has made plenty of movies already, of course — her first major acting role was as one of the four main characters in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a movie starring three other actresses mostly known for their work on television. It hit theaters two years before her star-making role on Gossip Girl began in 2006. While starring on Gossip Girl, Lively showed up in a variety of supporting roles: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee among them. She stretched her dramatic chops in Ben Affleck’s The Town and Oliver Stone’s Savages, playing notably gritty characters that seemed like complete departures from her fluffy and vapid Gossip Girl role — but both films were ensemble-driven, and Lively’s performances paled in comparison to her more famous, and more accomplished, co-stars.
The Age of Adaline is her first shot at a starring movie role, and it’s a tough sell. It is, after all, a romantic fantasy epic that looks more like a Chanel ad than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But while the film has not received many great reviews, critics have praised Lively’s performance. We’ll see how the film does at the box office this weekend; if it’s a hit, it may bring Lively more bargaining power and win her some more high-profile roles. If it’s a failure, however, it’s unlikely that she can rely on lukewarm reviews. One thing’s for certain: she’s capable of making bold moves, and her still short career has possible staying power.
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Photos: Everett Collection
