Things that would have made this movie better?

I hadn't thought about but I agree with your opinion on the narrator.

Yeah, I felt like Adaline really needed more tragedy to happen to give her a proper excuse to break out of her habits of personal withdrawal. I mean, her dog dies, and that's perhaps the worst thing that happens to her onscreen, and it must have happened to her several times already. It feels like a 107-year-old woman on the run for 80 years should have something far more crushing to convince her to stop running and do things differently. She did get a couple good crying scenes, one of them her reunion with William, but good as the acting was, it just didn't get the proper emotional mileage that, say, a child's death would have had. The scene where she talks with her daughter about moving to Arizona alluded to her fear that she wouldn't be able to be there if/when Flemming dies, but it ended up being an empty threat.

If I had the writing ability, I would have rewritten the scene with William telling her the jig was up, or even that whole weekend, so Adaline was more obviously afflicted with regrets after seeing what sort of life he built with his wife over the last 40 years. It wasn't enough just for William to express disbelief at her not having a life. Adaline had to talk about it too and make us feel it, how she deeply wants what he was able to have, but she couldn't see how she could with her lack of aging. And that the regrets have just kept following her and building up over the years. It seemed that we never heard it in her words, only the narrator's, and it would have been much more effective coming from Adaline. Just another reason to get rid of the stupid narration. And then depict her throughout the movie as a woman who, even obscured behind her old-fashioned reserve, comes closer and closer to an emotional breakthrough until it happens.

I think if the above changes were made, giving Adaline more of an emotional journey, we wouldn't be talking about her seeming too classy to be a real human with a heart that bleeds.

It would have made it more heartbreaking, but after the second accident she should have rapidly aged and turned to dust. She should have died decades ago. Think "Love live Walter Jameson" on the Twilight Zone. Once the miracle was reversed, she should have rapidly aged and died. Now she gets another 40 or 50 years. She only found one gray hair. That's not realistic at all, but this is a fairy tale after all.

Actors are mere products of a good writer's imagination

" I felt like she should have had at least two kids and one of them should have died."

Remember her husband died before the accident. Back then you didn't have children unless you were married. Once she realized what had happened, chances are she was extremely careful to never get pregnant again. She already knew she was destined to have to bury her only child.


Actors are mere products of a good writer's imagination

It needed to have a couple of more characters, like a friend for Ellis.

Also, the scene where Harrison Ford confronts Adeline is the last scene they share. They could have had another.

There was a massive build up to her being 'found out' but when it happened it really wrapped up quickly and a bit too conveniently.

May have liked to see the FBI come back and try take here away with the Jones family protecting her.

Yes a bit more humour and lighter moments could have been added. Adeline is way too reluctant to do anything meaningful.

While Blake is lovely, she doesn't bring any life to the character. She lived a meaningless life. She abandons her daughter at some point because she thinks people would figure something out. I suppose the daughter didn't want to live a gypsy life and have a life - but she apparently didn't because I don't remember any mention of her being married or having children. At one point they imply that Adaline had Xerox stock, which I assume enabled her to pick up and move at a moments notice. Which begs the question, how would she sometimes have the time to pack up all her vintage clothes and furnishings? She didn't really LIVE a life - just seemed like she was going through the motions. She didn't travel, she held boring jobs for the most part and she kept getting the same dog over and over again - probably renamed it the same thing too. I just felt like Blake just doesn't have the depth of emotions and a better actress would've been able to breathe life into this character. Blake was just ok. And the whole premise of ending up with the son of a former lover is just gross. And did Ellis' wife get to know the "secret" - I mean, since Adaline was using her real name at the end instead of Jennifer. It was 1:49 but seemed like 3:49 to me. I enjoyed Harrison Ford though.

After it ended I thought it may have been better if it had been made like Forrest Gump or Benjamin Button. Her not aging through time, and telling the story. Then it all catching up to her towards the end. It would have been more interesting, not that I didn't enjoy the movie as is.

I didn't care for the narration, it felt, as you said, like a textbook. Too certain and clear cut, I didn't like it.

I think something like "Highlander" had.. where he stayed with his wife until she was old and withered he stayed the same age, and she died.
But that would be hard to pull of realistically in a 20th century society (you can't just build a castle in the marshes and hide away from everyone else).

You needed to see more loss, to show what she was so afraid of.