The Age of Adaline

We all aspire to age gracefully, but The Age of Adaline takes that to a new extreme — with a protagonist that might feel like a superhero to aficionados of women’s fashion magazines for her ability to remain stylish and beautiful for decades without looking a day older than 29.

Those outside of its target demographic, however, probably won’t fall for this shallow and manipulative tearjerker quite as readily, with its eye-rolling gimmick and abundance of melodramatic contrivances.

It’s a fantasy in which a car accident gives the title character (Blake Lively), who was born in the early 20th century, the miraculous ability to remain stuck at 29 years old. As the decades pass, she sticks to her plan to change identities every 10 years to avoid revealing her secret, known only to her and her daughter, Flemming (Ellen Burstyn), who naturally looks much older.

Then romance predictably complicates Adaline’s careful ruse, as she meets a young philanthropist (Michiel Huisman), then spends a weekend with his family, during which his father (Harrison Ford) unveils a secret that rattles Adaline and forces her to make a life-altering choice.

As directed by Lee Toland Krieger (Celeste and Jesse Forever), the film is visually extravagant even if the drama seems trumped up and manufactured at times. It’s a showcase for the makeup and costume departments that captures the trends from its chronologically diverse settings, with several shots of the Golden Gate Bridge over the years intended to convey the spirit of San Francisco.

The deliberately paced script handles the tricky intricacies of its concept fairly well in terms of cohesion and continuity. Still, it’s not as profound as its premise suggests, dealing with issues of aging, materialism, mortality and regret.

Lively (TV’s “Gossip Girl”) is radiant, although the film shortchanges perhaps the most intriguing element in Adaline’s story — the relationship with her daughter, who acts as her best friend and confidant and urges her to spill the beans. “Don’t you miss having someone to love?” the elderly Flemming asks at one point.

Either way, with its emotional payoff driven by a head-scratching coincidence, Age of Adaline requires a suspension of disbelief that’s nearly impossible to achieve. By the time its two hours are finished, you might feel as though you’ve aged two years instead.

Rated PG-13, 113 minutes.