Tuck Everlasting

A family film built on immortality. Winnie is the daughter of a wealthy family. She is fifteen and her life is entirely planned: she is to be sent to boarding school. One day she runs past the garden wall into the wood. There she meets the Tuck family. They live in the forest, away from everyone. They have a secret: years ago they drank from a spring and have not aged since. Winnie stays with them and grows close to their son Jesse. The question the film asks is whether living forever is a good thing. The father rejects it outright; to him a person who does not age has stepped outside life. There is a threat as well: an outsider who has learned of the secret wants to find the spring and sell it. The source is Natalie Babbitt's children's novel. Alexis Bledel plays Winnie, Jonathan Jackson plays Jesse, and Sissy Spacek and William Hurt the parents. Ben Kingsley is in the cast. Jay Russell directed. A pleasant choice for anyone who likes family films and literary adaptation. For a viewer expecting action, it moves calmly and its weight is in an argument about an idea.