To me, this movie is perfection.

The Worst Film Ever

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

No idea about the reviewers on here claiming the movie isn't consistent with the book. They must never have read the book. Wonderful movie. Adds a bit of backstory to some characters to make the plot more interesting and the characters more complex. Beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted. Perfect movie.

Disney's adaptation of Natalie Babbitt's beloved childhood novel is not as powerful as it tries to come across as. Winnie is aged so that she and Jamie can have a more romantic story-line and so the heart of the story will be their tragic love for each other. But it is just so unnecessary. The original novel holds true wisdom because this little girl, in the prime of her innocence and childhood youth can see that everlasting life is not all it's cracked up to be and she decides to let time play a part in her decision. But in the movie Winnie is grown and in love with Jamie, so her decision is odd. I for one could not see why she wouldn't be forever happy with the man she loves.That small alteration is about the only difference from book to film, but it is a fatal one. In changing the age of the main character you change the essence of the story and it in turn loses everything that was everlasting about it. This overdone Romeo and Juliet bit is so prosaic that you cannot even really feel bad for the lovers when they are inevitably torn apart by circumstance, distance and eventually, time.This will not be the definitive film version and I eagerly await another go at it. 6/10

As I right this review, the Broadway musical of this classic children's novel from the 1970s opened on Broadway to excellent reviews from the New York Times. Having just seen that a few weeks ago, I Revisited the movie and slowly remember what has Enchanted me when I seen this years ago. Jonathan Jackson, the handsome and innocent-looking Lucky Spencer from "General Hospital", is the innocent young boy who is older than he seems. In the opening scene, he drives up to an old southern mansion on a motorcycle, and the film flashes back many years to when he had first met the heroine (Alexis Biedel) whom he fell in love with."Do not fear death, but only the unloved life." that is the theme for the book, two movies and the new Broadway musical. It occurs in the woods in the back of the Foster mansion in the self, where Jackson's father William Hurt and mother Sissy Spacek make their home, hiding out because they are destined to live forever. Jackson falls in love with Biedel whom his older brother is forced to kidnap when she discovers the secret, and the presence of a mysterious Man in the Yellow Suit Ben Kingsley threatens to destroy their hiding place and reveal the secret, giving the potential of making them into freaks. Moving performances by the entire cast (which includes Amy Irving as the heroine's mother and Victor Garber as her father) make this truly worth watching, as does the very direct way that the screenplay presents the story.I've always been a Sissy Spacek fan, and she is totally lovely as the kindly mother who takes Biedel under her wing as if she were her own daughter. William Hurt, who has played his share of villains and heroes, is wise and humble as Jackson's father who provides the film's moral. Along with Dianne Wiest and Alan Arkin in "Edward Ecissorhands", these two rank as the best surrogate parents in film history. Kingsley makes a great villain, his character amply described in the musical as an "evil banana". While this lacks certain elements from the novel and the musical, it moves briskly and makes its point which I have greatly accepted: a life well lived needs an ending, and hopefully, you go out with applause and thumbs up for a job well done.

Whilst the actors can be fully commended for their acting, I was very disappointed with the ending and in my opinion it ruined the whole film for me.The fact that the family that drank from that magic spring could live forever is still not something which is unbelievable to readers/viewers, but the claimed fact (by the novelist) that the family could now be completely 'invincible' and 'immune' to being killed by pistol fire/hanging/lynching or any other form of harm is illusory at best.Yes, if they were wounded by pistol bullets, then it is possible to have the wounds healed by the water from magic spring (along with having the bullet removed) but if the bullet pierced essential body parts such as the head or the heart then it is no longer possible for the person to remain alive for long. Just as in the Lord of the Rings where the Elves are immortal as long as they are not killed by orcs/trolls during battle.Even if such a magic fountain existed in America, does one not think that it would have been discovered and extracted by the 20th or 21st century? Surely the Tucker family would have had hundreds of not thousands of descendants who in turn would continue to live at very long ages and therefore raise awareness in the wider American public of their secret? (Take for example, the story of Li Ching-Yuen who purportedly lived for 256 years of age, married 23 times, had 200 descendants, his centenary and bi-centenary were both celebrated by the local authorities whilst he was still alive and then he died in 1933).Lastly, the female main character's choice at the end of the film to not choose to drink from the magic spring thinking that life would be 'boring' and 'meaningless' if they remained alive forever and she'd rather die after living a 'full life', than be immortal and forever stuck watching life pass her by. It gravely encourages Epicurean philosophical thinking which encourages people to "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die".Such a way of thinking is greatly flawed and assumes that one is better off being dead after living a 'meaningful life' than remaining alive forever. For those who are christians would recall from the Bible that Adam and Eve were not given a finite life by God by default and in fact were entitled to eat from the Tree of Life which would enable them to remain alive forever. It was the rejection of God's commands that lead them to become mortal in the flesh and their subsequent unhappiness, pains, hardships & suffering on earth.There is no evidence to suggest that humans are not capable of enjoying a very happy and content life if granted the opportunity to become immortal (it would in fact be the very opposite unless that person happened to be a criminal in which case it would be better off for that person to live a shorter life). Christians believe that those who are eventually eligible to go to heaven would be immortal there because they would have the opportunity to eat from the Tree of Life in Heaven.Hence the conceptual premises of this film are hugely flawed and would only be suitable for children or young teenagers (many of whom would be heart-broken and/or disappointed by the ending of this purely fictional story)