Movie Review: Tuck Everlasting - A Peek at Immortality

"Do you want to live forever?"

Underneath the flippant tone in which it is often asked, hides a query that expresses humankind's greatest longing - immortality. The first reaction of most people when asked that question would be to answer "yes". After all, immortality (with invulnerability and eternal youth thrown in at no extra charge) is a heady possibility.

Unquestionably a blessing... or is it?

Think about the price. It's not immediately apparent, but it is an unpleasant one. Never dying means never. The peace of the grave will forever be denied. Growing old with a loved one cannot happen. Life will go on and on and on, until, inevitably, one is almost guaranteed to wish and hope and pray for some way to end it all. The ancient proverb states: "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it."

Tuck Everlasting, a Disney Film, is about a rich and bored girl, Winnie, who walks away from her home into the woods. There she meets the Jesse Tuck and his family, who are not the ordinary kind of people. They became invincible thanks to the well water they had drunk, and now they'll remain young forever. Time does not exist for them anymore. Winnie slowly falls in love with the 17 year old Jesse Tuck (well, actually he is 100+ years old).

Now the thing that I like about this movie is that it makes you think about life, death and being invincible. I mean everybody would love to be invincible right? This movie tries to make you see the other side, the problems that come with invincibility. Jesse's father, Angus Tuck even says: "What we Tucks have you can't call it living. We just... are. We're like rocks, stuck at the side of a stream."

And at that moment it makes you wonder about what Wendy should choose. Although the movie was not Lord of the Rings-famous or not as deep as other movies, Tuck Everlasting is a movie worth watching. Also, the film, for me, poses an important question about death. Since Jesse is immortal, Winnie has to make a choice: to live forever with Jesse or to live a life but die eventually.

The film's message can be summed in these few short lines,

Winnie: I don't want to die, is that wrong? Angus Tuck: No. It's part of being human. Angus Tuck: Don't be afraid of death, Winnie. Be afraid of the unlived life You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.