Tuck Everlasting (2002)

Set in 1914, a teenage girl (Alexis Bledel) comes across a young boy (Jonathan Jackson) while walking in the woods. When his older brother (Scott Bairstow) comes across them, he panics and takes the girl forcibly to their parents (William Hurt, Sissy Spacek). For the family has a dark secret that must never be exposed. Based on the children's novel by Natalie Babbitt and directed by Jay Russell (MY DOG SKIP). The novel was a best seller and is now considered a classic of children's literature (I suppose some might refer to it as a "young adult" novel instead). The film makers decided to make it more attractive to teens by turning it into a romance which the book isn't. In the novel, the girl is 12 years old but the film makers have made her about 16 years so she could fall in love with the youngest member of the Tuck family and unrequited love takes center stage. Other than that, it stays reasonably faithful to the novel. For about 3/4 of the movie's running time, I found it charming and rather sweet but the last quarter bungles it. It's the kind of ending where the protagonist(s) needs to escape or risk getting caught yet there's a long goodbye as William Ross's sweeping underscore rises and I kept grumbling, "Move your ass, you ninny. Get out of there!". With Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving, Victor Garber with Elisabeth Shue doing the narration.