There and Back Again

Last Sunday, I went to see DisneyÂ’s new drama-adventure film Tuck Everlasting. The movie is based on Natalie Babbitt’s book of the same title. It’s a story about growing up and finding the real world, a story about living and dying. The main character is young Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel) who is desperate to free herself from her parents’ strict hold and to find out the secrets the forest in her backyard holds. When she finally acts on her restlessness and runs away to the woods, she meets Jesse Tucker (the handsome Jonathan Jackson) and his family and eventually learns their secret.

Enjoyable as Rory in WB’s The Gilmore Girls, Bledel is captivating on the big screen. She blends perfectly with Jonathan Jackson who is equally charming with his comely face and natural ability to act carefree and passionate about life. I have seen Jackson in brooding roles such as the rebellious Vincent in Deep End of the Ocean, suicidal Toby in On the Edge and abused psychotic in Skeletons in the Closet. I must say that Jackson pulls an angry, rebellious teenager act just as well as he pulls a happy, lighthearted 100-or-so-year-old immortal. The rest of the cast is just as amazing. A wise William Hurt, a caring Sissy Spacek and an angry Scott Bairstow round up the Tuck family. Victor Garber and Amy Irving are perfect as Winnie’s upper-class-crisp parents. And a sinister-looking Ben Kingsley is memorable as the banana-yellow-suit-wearing villain who hunts down the Tucks’ secret.

The movie is very moving. I enjoyed it and I think I would have enjoyed the book too if I had the chance to read it. The story is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Although it is based on Babbitt’s children’s book and is marketed as a true Disney movie thereby attracting young viewers, it was appealing to me because it asks an ageless question. If you could, would you live forever and be just the way you are now? This is the question Winnie Foster must answer. If she could, would she drink the water of immortality to be with the love of her life? Would you?

Before heading home, I went to the theater’s restroom and heard the young girls’ comments on the movie. It was sad how some couldn’t get past the romantic tragedy between Winnie and Jesse and can’t see the bigger meaning of the story. I am saddened at the thought that Jesse Tuck will stay seventeen alone and live forever without his one true love. But I don’t think that was what the movie or the book wanted readers/viewers to linger on. It is a love story foremost, but the bigger part of it aches to tell us the lesson about the meaning of death and of life, the meaning of making choices and living the consequences of such choices. How we live life matters most than how long we’ve lived it.