For a sheltered young woman, meeting a handsome, supernatural boy can be the beginning of a passionate adventure, lasting beyond a lifetime. For others, like the heroine of 2002's Tuck Everlasting, such an encounter may be a chaste and pleasant diversion for a few weeks, or even months, but, well, there's never any reason to become too terribly excited. This anemic fantasy romance will make you feel that it's not worth pondering whether your most fantastic wishes may come true.
In the early 1900s, a pretty young woman named Winnie (Alexis Bledel) chafes somewhat against the strict outline her parents have imposed on her future. One day, she escapes into the forest where she means a nice, clean family who became immortal after drinking from a magic spring.
She strikes up a friendship with the good-looking Jesse Tuck (Jonathan Jackson). The two find each other very pleasant and even dance and swim together. Finally, one day the Tuck patriarch (William Hurt) explains that immortality can be a curse. This sets up a conflict between her desire to share a life with Jesse and her preference to avoid becoming an eternal being cut off from human society in some vague, abstract, intellectual way. Whatever her decision, this movie is always ready to gently remind you that nothing is worth getting excited about.
As Roger Ebert aptly put it, "The movie is too impressed with its own solemn insights to work up much entertainment value," it's a movie burdened with "feather-brained sentimentality." Oh, Roger Ebert, I miss you. I know you'd know how to use eternal life. Indeed, he said so; "I know what I'd do: Spend 10 years apiece in the world's most interesting places." Think of all the things you could learn, all the skills, all the experiences you could have. It hardly seems to require that much imagination, which makes it all the more incredible all of the characters in this movie are completely lacking it.
Tuck Everlasting is available on Disney+.
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