Rated PG - Running Time: 1:28 - Released 10/11/02
TUCK EVERLASTING
Rated PG - Running Time: 1:28 - Released 10/11/02
The idea of living forever may seem attractive until you ponder
all the ramifications of such a fate—watching everyone you
know and care about grow old and die, never being able to escape
issues like overpopulation, war, and pollution, and having to
listen to each successive generation's crappy idea of music. Such
things are addressed in Jay Russell's whimsical fantasy Tuck
Everlasting, a new Disney Studios interpretation of the 1975
novel by Natalie Babbitt, adapted for the screen by Jeffrey Lieber
and James V. Hart. It's a complex idea given a simplistic treatment,
but that's not the fault of the filmmakers, who are simply following
the childlike tone of Babbitt's novel, which itself was aimed
at the pre-teen demographic and is assigned reading in many middle-school
classrooms. Simple or not, it's got nice scenery (lensed by cinematographer
James L. Carter, who also worked with director Russell on My Dog Skip) and features some not-too-shabby
castmembers like Oscar-winners William Hurt, Sissy Spacek, and
Ben Kingsley. They're not going to win any awards for their work
here, but they certainly do as well as usual.
The real star of this movie, however, is 19-year-old Alexis
Bledel (Gilmore Girls), who plays wealthy, pampered, early-20th-century
teen Winnifred Foster. Seeing life from behind the iron fence
of her stately family home in Treegap, New York, Winnie craves
adventure, but is kept strictly in check by her very proper mother
(Amy Irving) and father (Victor Garber). But when they tell her
she's going to be sent off to boarding school, that's it—she
runs away from home, at least figuratively, since she ends up
in the wood owned by her father. There she is startled by an attractive
young man named Jesse Tuck (Jonathan Jackson), who is drinking
water from a spring at the base of a huge tree with a "T"
carved in its trunk.
Next thing she knows, Winnie's being kidnapped, taken back
to Jesse's country home on horseback by him and his brother Miles
(Scott Bairstow), who apparently have some deep, dark family secret
that can only be explained by their father Angus (Hurt) and mother
Mae (Spacek). It seems that the spring is a "fountain of
youth," with the power to stop the aging process and render
the drinker immortal, and the Tucks are really hundreds of years
old. While she stays at their home, she enjoys life like she never
did before and becomes quite fond of them, especially Jesse, who
suggests that she drink from the spring and join him in everlasting
life. Meanwhile, her worried parents enlist the help of a mysterious
man in a yellow suit (Kingsley), who has been following the Tucks
for some time and seems to know their secret. He offers to bring
Winnie back in exchange for ownership of the wood; however, his
real intentions are more sinister, and when he finds her, something
happens that threatens to tear the whole town apart.
There is something wistful about this movie; its tone seems as melancholy as its main character. I suppose it could be seen as a gentle way to discuss death with a child, as the pivotal scene involves Angus telling Winnie that living forever is unnatural and more of a sentence than a gift: "What we Tucks have, you can't call living," he says. "We just are, like rocks stuck by the side of the road." But despite its sad feel, and the fact that it drags almost to a standstill in the middle, it's quite beautiful visually and features fine performances by Bledel, Jackson, and the others. ****
