McCallion
Quest
By: Ala Hussain and Nicole Paserin © 2002
Tuck Everlasting, originally a famous novel, written by Natalie Babbitt, which was made into a movie, and came out during the summer of 2002 and was actually quite well done.
This story takes place about half a century ago, where a teenage girl, Winifred Foster, also known as Winnie, (played by Alexis Bledel), about to enter womanhood feels all alone in the world. With her mother (played by Amy Irving), ordering her around and expecting her to be more like a woman, and, with her father agreeing, Winnie is lost. She has never in her life had the chance to be a kid, and be free, until this one day.
The plot of the story begins to get going when Winnie learns that she is to be sent to a girls’ boarding school. While heading to the forest trying to run away from the thought of a girls boarding school, she falls upon a young man named Jesse Tuck (played by Jonathan Jackson). She questions the young man of his entrance onto the property of her father, while he himself questions her about the same matter. Her attention is caught by a puddle near by a large oak tree, and she becomes curious. Since she has been traveling for several hours, she is desperate for a drink of it’s lovely water. Without warning, the stranger she has just met blocks her path, and forbids her of having her long deserved drink. At that very moment an older man charges towards Winnie, seated upon his dark-colored horse. Everything becomes a blur, until they reach a cottage, where the strangers’ mother awaits them all.
The family together decides to keep her temporarily until this clears up, but that’s not how it turns out to be. A few months later, Winnie, still staying with the Tucks, has become a whole new person. This family is very different from all she had known before. They taught each other and her to live life to the fullest. They always had things to do. Adventures, chores, jobs, and of course family time. They were so wonderfully different from her parents and household, and they were even like her second family but one thing is very strange to her. She begins to notice that every one of the Tucks never keeps track of time. Jesse was the one who taught her the most how to live life to the fullest, and, as time passed by, Jesse Tuck and Winnie became fond of each other". in other words "liked each other, a lot. Jesse was the one who taught her the most how to live life to the fullest. As their love becomes obvious to the audience, it is here that Jesse confesses that the spring water is actually a fountain of youth and that he has drunk from it. Winnie figures out that despite his youthful appearence, he is over 100 years old.
During the time she is away, Winnie’s real parents are desperate to find their little princess. So, they hook up with a man they had initially suspected as her ‘ kidnapper’, and asked him to help them find Winnie. He agreed to help them, as long as he could get the land they owned (which was really the forest with the spring water of eternity, the forest that the Tucks and Winnie were presently living in). Winnie’s parents, with little choice, agreed to the deal and they started the search again. They found Winnie and dashed after the Tucks. Fortunately, Jesse and his brother escaped just in time, but on the other hand, their parents struggled and were taken to prison.
In a desperate need to free his parents, Jesse comes to Winnie, and asks her for help in rescuing them. She agrees, and they succeed. However, unfortunately, they had to escape the town right after the rescue. Though Jesse told Winnie to drink of the spring water of eternity, (the water that made you live forever) so that when he would come for her someday, she would still be there, Winnie decided not to. She actually wanted to live life to the fullest as long as she lived. After 80 years, Jesse came back for her and sadly, there lay Winnie’s tombstone right next to the oak tree.
This movie, though quite entertaining, wasn’t as good as the novel itself. Well 'novels are always better than the movies, but there was quite a few things that seemed better in the novel that in the movie. Then again, this story was very well organized and directed, the parts were very well played, and the actors really did an excellent job in making you either feel or understand how the character did.
The costumes as well as the sets and the background were excellent, and the way they displayed life in those days were visually clear. They showed the attitude of people during those days and how people reacted to different situations. If you look at the equality of women these days and back then, it was very different and there was much injustice. The dialogue was different, but it also displayed to the viewers the way people spoke at that time. What I am trying to say, is that this movie was very well done in almost every way.
Though there were many good things about this movie". there were equally bad things about it as well. Many of the parts just didn’t make sense. For example, Jesse said " I will wait for you until the day I die." That may be a very touching part but it was very weird at the same time, because, since he had drank from the spring water, he could never die. I suppose it meant he would wait for her until the end of time? In addition, I think that they needed to be more descriptive about things that were more important. They made the things that weren’t really that important more detailed and left out some of the more significant concepts. Take for instance the man with the yellow suit, who helped find Winnie in exchange for the forest with the spring water. They should have shown his past, and more about him. They could have also been a bit more creative with certain things.
In conclusion, I think you should go and see "Tuck Everlasting". Maybe not in the theaters, but on video. In theaters, it’s just a waste of money, especially for a movie like this one. Some people think that this is a an excellent and beautiful movie". and others have the opposite opinion. Tuck Everlasting needs more of your opinion and taste in movies than anything else. One viewer said "This movie was very good. It really made one think. It puts things in a whole new perspective. I recommend it." Another person commented, "this was so beautiful, so true too. You must live life to the fullest. But it is only with death that we truly know what life means." A third person declared "I thought this was a great movie with lots of romance and adventure. It’s a very sad movie that I’ll own right away when it comes out!!!!!" One person also exclaimed their reactions this way: "This movie sucked", or by remarking that " some parts of it are foolish" A last person stated "I just didn’t get the ending when..." All people interpret and think of the movies in different ways. Here’s how viewers rated the video: ***** 91.1%, **** 0.62%, ***0.17%, ** 0.11%, and *8.00%. I guess you just have to see the movie for yourself to know how it really is.