The film “Tuck Everlasting” attempts to adapt the classic children’s novel by the same name into a movie whose demographic is the teenage equivalent of those who can’t get enough of movies like “Orlando.” Set in pre-World War I America, “Tuck Everlasting” follows the adventures of 15-year-old Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel, “Gilmore Girls”).
Foster is one of those unfortunate privileged people in early 20th-century America. While her contemporaries are the victims of back-breaking industrial labor or crushing racism, she is forced to endure an upper-class life. For, you see, Winnie Foster must wear a corset, catch lightening bugs and stay in a lavish mansion.
She tires of this “stifling” life, decides to run away and encounters the strange Tuck family who inhabit her father’s forest. She quickly discovers that this family is immortal. They drank from a magical spring 100 years earlier and since then have not grown old and cannot be killed.
This knowledge is made all the more complicated by a budding relationship between Winnie and the Tucks’ youngest son, Jesse (Jonathan Jackson, “Insomnia”). Jesse urges her to drink from the well and spend eternity with him, but Jesse’s father (William Hurt, “A.I.”) warns her, “What we Tucks do can’t be called living.” He instead subscribes to a “Lion King”-esque ideal of the “circle of life,” and waxes philosophically about the meaning of human existence.
While Winnie is enjoying her hiatus with the Tucks, a strange wanderer (Ben Kingsley, “Sexy Beast”) is following the family in an attempt to find out the location of the magical spring. He wants to sell the spring water to desperate invalids and, presumably, take some himself.
There are some real strengths in this film. The cinematography is nicer and more lush than most children’s movies–sweeping Appalachian vistas, beautiful sunlit lakes, hidden glades of oak and maple. It envelops the characters, frames the action and makes the existence of magical springs seem plausible.
Moreover, the acting–with the exception of the children–is quite nice. Ben Kingsley is particularly good. He turns the evil wanderer into a somewhat sympathetic character and dominates the scenes he inhabits. He takes a poorly written role and turns it into the most complex part of the entire film.
That said, the good aspects are far outweighed by the bad ones. For example, Winnie is a little brat. She floats from scene to scene, not caring that her parents think she is dead. She runs away from her house because her parents suggest she go to school. The great tragedy of her life is that she has to play the piano for her mother and grandmother.
Adolescents are in the process of defining their own identity as separate from their parents, but the way this film deals with that negotiation is not satisfying. Winnie is easily one of the most self-centered film protagonists in recent memory. She lets her parents think she is dead or has been kidnapped. She hates those who seem to have done nothing but provide her with a house right out of “The Secret Garden” or “Little Women.”
However, the most troubling aspect of “Tuck Everlasting” is its love-story framing of the main story. Winnie and Jesse love one another and debate whether to spend the rest of eternity together–what’s the message here? Maybe a 15-year-old girl just isn’t old enough to commit herself to someone forever–maybe she isn’t old enough to debate the ethical and moral questions of whether to become immortal.
Teenage love withers and children should not commit themselves at the age of 15, but this film tells its adolescent audience the opposite.
GRADE–C
