Adaline

Having had the opportunities to watch some surprisingly good indie films, I stumbled upon Adaline and decided to try my luck on it today. Unfortunately, the movie was just too painful to watch. Firstly, the poor writing as well as directing makes Adaline worse than a child play and just randomly develop without proper pace or any logical connections between each scene. There was so much nonsense that it seemed like the director just got rid of characters from the screen or resurrected them whenever he felt like doing it. I found this ridiculous and hilarious at the same time as it left the whole audience with uncountable WTF moments throughout the film. Secondly, the acting looks stiff, boring and fake, making it hard to evoke people's curiosity and to terrify them as a thriller/horror movie was meant to do. In fact, I could not tell if it is thriller or the kind of horror where you die of boredom. The only bright spot of Adaline is its cinematography peppered with some nice shots of Golden Gate Bridge and interesting use of angles. I am glad I finished it at the end of 2015 rather than wait until 2016 to torture my brain at the beginning of a wonderful new year. Believe me, I really try to leave a positive review on every film I have seen but this so-called movie is just impossible. It was funny that the whole audience in my room actually gave a big round of applause when Adaline ended. I guess they were really happy that they could finally escape their mental abuse with courtesy.

Spoiler alert....I am revealing some spefic details of the film.8 I really enjoyed watching this film. As an low-budget Indie it is quite good, especially for the cinematography, which I thought was top notch. There is splendid use of shadow effects, wonderful angles and lighting. There was some decent acting throughout, and I particularly enjoyed the job Jeremy Walker did as a developmentally disabled young man, Marvin. I have worked with special needs students, and I felt that he did a good job portraying one. The kindness that was shown him by Danielle, the main character, was refreshing and helped to highlight her vulnerability. There were a number of scenes that made me jump, some that made me tense up, and some that left me guessing, especially as to who the "bad guy" was. What more can we ask for in a thriller? It would be interesting to see what Bidisha Chowdhury, the director, could do with a larger budget....

Adaline has good production values with a solid cast and a well told story. It looks great and the story has plenty of twists and turns and elements of surprise. The pacing is good and the different locales - San Francisco, then a rural town in Marin County - offer a nice contrast to setting and atmosphere. The lead female protagonist, a frustrated painter trying to get her work seen, inherits an old house and sees it as an opportunity and new start to her work and life. Of course the house comes with a past and secrets that spill into the present when she arrives and settles in. It's an interesting mix of horror, suspense, supernatural and mystery genres - there's something in it for everyone. Recommended.

British title - "The Conjured" (how highly unoriginal!). A young artist called Daniela inherits an old house a couple of hours drive out of San Francisco but soon spooky things such as ghostly visions and Satanic pentagrams start to appear. She befriends a couple of locals, one being her neighbour John. She thinks he's a nice guy but any self respecting movie fan can tell straight away that he's a creep. John is played by Lane Townsend, obviously hired more for his looks than for his acting ability. The conversation between the two often has those painfully long pauses, Oscar worthy this isn't! At least Jill Evyn (Daniela) is not afraid to take her clothes off for the camera. The sex scenes must surely be the sole reason why this garbage is rated 18 in Britain, it certainly cannot be for violence or horror. The latter is very poor, a combination of weak ghosts and a laughably bad Satanic plot. The pace is very slow, at 96 minutes it surely could have lost some of its dull, pointless dialogue. On the plus side the camera work is good and at the start we are treated to some nice shots of San Francisco. One of the quotes on the UK DVD sleeve reads "I nearly fell out of my bed in fear!" Well I watched this in bed too, only I had a job to stay awake!

I usually don't leave movies midway just because i respect the hard work put by so many different people to create one. This one was a nightmare to watch - certainly not because of the horror content. I am fan of thriller and horror movies. This one was just a draggy movie and doesn't come in any genre. Scenes were so disconnected and it felt they have just put random scenes just to fill in the gaps. Bad script, Horrible direction and overall just a pain to watch.

If you want to waste 2 hours of your life, you should watch this. Otherwise you will end up saving 2 precious hours of your life that can bring happiness rather than the disappointment that will accompany the ending of this movie. Literally I tried to find something from this movie on which basis I could give it a good or at least average review, but this is not up to the standard of an average movie. I am highly disappointed in this. If you don't believe me, then go for it. Poor acting skills and poor directions make it even worse. No proper story line or script. Its seems so childish. A lot effort is missing in the section because of which it couldn't become that much horror, it should have been.

Not sure what these birds above were watching, I think some of these reviewers woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I thought the film was thoughtful and well plotted. Considering a low budget and indie nature of the film I thought it was very well done. I do agree about he confusion of the mental challenged character and not sure it was totally necessary but think the actor himself did fantastic with the role. There were moments when the film was a little slow but I did not mind it as I was on the edge of my seat in a few parts and really the eeriness of the ghost had me boggled. I would watch it again and suggest you watch it too.

I thoroughly enjoyed ADALINE - it was full of surprises, suspenseful, and beautiful to look at. Being an indie film one might expect the production values to be a bit uneven, but the film flows along and keeps all the balls in the air. The cinematography in particular stands out: foggy moonlit night scenes, a dusty spooky attic filled with mystery, the hustle and bustle of the city. The music and the soundtrack deserve mention as well. The audience I saw ADALINE with was very absorbed with the film and seemed to find several plot turns genuinely surprising. Always a good sign. Overall a positive viewing experience. Recommended!

I think that the crew and cast did an amazing job with this film considering they were operating with an extremely low budget. The acting was good and natural, the cinematography was very well done. As a psychological terror thriller it comes off very well. There were some truly scary moments and several sub plots that added a great deal to the watchability and tension in the movie. Much better than a lot of indie films that I've seen. It's been accepted to 10 or more film festivals and was awarded the best horror film medal in at least one of them. Most movies don't even make it to one, so getting into 10 of them (both domestic and international) is quite an achievement. I'd love to see what the producer and director could do with a larger budget.

To compare this to TV Movies really insults TV Movies as some make the effort and produce something actually watchable on a similar budget. This film was terrible, 1 dimensional characters, poor writing and just a complete muddle, it wasn't clear what genre it was aiming for and managed to underwhelm in several. In essence a poorly acted lady inherits a house and starts to see dreams or visions of herself in a wig from another life. It really never pans out to mean anything and eventually turns out to be a film about abusive exs or something? Also there's a pretty offensive mentally handicapped dude for really no reason at all, unsure if its the writing or the acting but his handicap appears to be just dressing and talking funny, hes pretty much just a normal otherwise. Stick a dude in dungarees and glasses and suddenly hes mentally handicapped WTF??? Poor effort all round people avoid like the plague.