It translates perfectly to film due in part to the painstaking perfection of Director Jay Russell ( “My Dog Skip”, 2000). It has been on the American Library Association’s Notable Book list for 25 years and named one of the most important children’s books of the 20th century by School Library Journal. Now enjoyed by two generations of readers, Tuck Everlasting first came to the scene in 1975 from the mind of author Natalie Babbitt. The evil Man in the Yellow Suit will stop at nothing to get what he wants: sole ownership of the Fountain of Youth, and everlasting life himself. And the closer a mysterious tracker, The Man in the Yellow Suit (played masterfully by Sir Ben Kingsley), gets to the Tuck’s secret, the sooner we know the world will come crashing down on the Tuck’s well guarded secret. Yet doomed like Romeo and Juliet, we know it can never be. “Yes, drink of the spring” we want to say once Winnie learns of it.
The two form such a close, innocent friendship and love for one another that we can’t help but long for them to be together forever. She is so drawn to them and the adventure that is an everyday part of life for perpetually 17 Jesse, she just stays on while her family, lead by father Robert Foster (Victor Garber, “ Titanic”) desperately searches for her. Not yet knowing the secret, she is captivated by this simple family that takes her in. Panicked, the family doesn’t know what to do with Winnie, and Winnie herself isn’t sure what to think. They’ve told no one outside their tight family in over a century, living as recluses in the woods on the edge of Treegap (filmed with sweeping cinematography in the Susquehanna State Park and Berlin, Maryland).īut one day teenaged Winnie Foster ( Alexis Bledel, “ Gilmore Girls”), trapped in a smothering life of sophistication and boredom, gets lost wandering in the woods her family owns and discovers young Jesse Tuck drinking from the spring. When accidents take place (like falling from a high tree with no injuries, being bit by a rattler but showing no effects of the poison, fighting wars but being invincible), the Tucks know they have a secret that must be protected at all costs. They realize something is strange from the first moment their lips touch the water… it’s like tasting heaven. In the early 19th century the Tucks-Angus ( William Hurt, “ A.I.”), Mae ( Sissy Spacek, “Crimes of the Heart”), Miles (Scott Bairstow, “Lonesome Dove,” “ The Postman”), and Jesse (Jonathan Jackson, “ Insomnia”)-inadvertently drink from a small spring at the bottom of a tree while traveling.
That’s just what the Tuck family has done, not by conscious decision though. Why is that? Why do we hold youth, beauty and vitality as more important than age, experience and wisdom? If you could stay 30 forever, would you? Growing old is not an experience many look forward to. Perpetual youth-it’s what our culture wants.
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