Tuck Everlasting (2002) Alexis Bledel, William Hurt, Sissy Spacek, Jonathan Jackson, Scott Bairstow Movie Review

Tuck Everlasting (2002)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Alexis Bledel and Jonathan Jackson in Tuck Everlasting (2002)

Tuck-Light

As a young lady growing up in a respectable family in the small town of Treegap, Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel) has no freedom as her parents are more concerned with her having the best future than enjoying being young. It is why one day she walks off in to the surrounding woods where she comes across Jesse Tuck (Jonathan Jackson) drinking from a well who takes her home to meet her family; Angus (William Hurt), Mae (Sissy Spacek) and Jesse's brother Miles (Scott Bairstow). But the Tuck family have a secret, having drunk from a well they have becomes immortals, unable to die or grow older than they are. It is both a cure and a curse especially when those they know grow old and die whilst it also leads to them having to watch their backs as others try to track them down.

I watched "Tuck Everlasting" when it came out in 2002 and to be honest I didn't think much of it and had put it to the back of my mind. But watching it again for the first time in 13 years and it is a very different experience thanks to another movie. That other movie is "Twilight" because there are some very clear similarities between the two with a family who are immortal and a romance with a human. Okay so well water drinkers is different to blood suckers and "Tuck Everlasting" is set in 1914 rather than the present but it almost feels like an origins story, a prequel it is that similar.

Okay so "Tuck Everlasting" does have its differences, for one it is a single movie, thank goodness. But that means that whilst we discover that the Tucks are immortals and they have a mysterious man hunting them down the movie more quickly gets to the point. That point is whether Winnie will have to choose to become immortal and live for ever watching lives go by because of her love for Jesse or choose to live a normal life, a full life and eventually die.

What for me makes "Tuck Everlasting" easier to watch than the later "Twilight" is not only the condensing down of a story to a single movie but in Alexis Bledel they have a much more appealing star. Plus in William Hurt and Sissy Spacek they have great talent and they bring layers of depth to the movie in their characterisations.

What this all boils down to is that "Tuck Everlasting" first and fore mostly is a movie made for a teenage audience. But watched now it has an added layer of interest because of the obvious similarities between it and "Twilight".


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