Stats:

Movie:
Pleasantville

Stars:
Joan Allen
William H. Macy
Jeff Daniels
Tobey McGuire
Reese Witherspoon

Date: 1998

Bottom Line:
Excellent movie. I cannot say enough how great a film I feel this is.

Pleasantville

Nostalgia makes everything seem much better than it originally was. Tobey McGuire is David, a modern teen who would prefer to retreat from the problems of our world by crawling into the reruns from the 1950s television show, "Pleasantville." His twin sister, Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon), is trying to be popular at school by hanging with the sluts. David is settling down for a weekend marathon of "Pleasantville" episodes, while Jennifer is prepping for her date with the school hunk. A fight over the remote control ensues and it gets broken.

Enter Don Knotts (in an excellent cameo role) as a spooky, in the nick-of-time TV repairman who makes housecalls. He gives the twins a new remote 'with a little more oomph.' The remote has more than a little 'oomph,' it sucks David and Jennifer into the "Pleasantville" marathon as Bud and Mary Sue.

David is thrilled to be there while Jennifer is livid. Everything in Pleasantville is in Black and White as well as David and Jennifer. Everything in Pleasantville is perfect. But is it really? Pleasantville is the ideal America, the America we wanted to believe that we were in the 1950s, but wasn't really. Jennifer soon sets out to change Pleasantville more to her liking. Cracks in the veneer of Pleasantville soon begin. It seems that this was just what the town needed. David is upset because he realizes that her changes (even the tiny ones) are creating big changes in the perfect town. Suddenly, the undefeated high school basketball team loses a game. A thunder and lightening storm rains down on the town. Some of the wives want their husbands to trade in their twin beds for 'big beds' (Queen or King sized beds). The high schoolers begin listening to Rock & Roll as well as Jazz. The kids begin to read books that once were blank, but fill in the pages when they are read. Even more unsettling, residents begin to first see things in color and then when they become enlightened, THEY become colorized. David comes to appreciate the changes that he sees occurring around him to the people, while he and Jennifer wonder why they have not become colorized.

The mayor and most of the town's men feel highly threatened. Bud and Mary Sue's mom, Joan Allen, is one of the first to become colorized when she realizes her sexual awakening. Her hapless husband, William H. Macy, can't understand what is happening around him. He is recruited by the menacing mayor, the late J.T. Walsh (in his final role) to stop the changes that are occurring in Pleasantville. Macy wants everything to continue as it always has been. He asks colorized Joan Allen, "Won't it just go away?" Allen replies forcefully, "I don't want it to go away." She leaves him to be with Jeff Daniels, the town soda jerk who appreciates art and is becoming a blossoming painter. It is possibly no accident, that Allen and Daniels are the only two adults in Pleasantville who become colorized.

Walsh, the mayor, fights back against the colorized. A proclamation, reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws (the Nazi code of rules that governed Jews before WWII) is enforced, banning music and color and umbrellas. The kindly townspeople put up signs in the businesses that state "No coloreds". The high school boys become thugs, beating up/taunting coloreds, which reminded me strongly of the Hitler Youth. The colorized are hounded and seek refuge in the trashed remains of Daniels' Soda Shop. All of a sudden, the friendly town of Pleasantville isn't so pleasant anymore and is shown to be the bigoted, rigid place that it actually is. This of course is not just a metaphor for 1950s America, but modern day America.

David stands up to the Mayor and shows him to the townpeople for what he really is, a scared bully. David argues that things are much better now that people are free to be silly, funny, human. The entire town becomes colorized afterwards. Jennifer decides to stay behind and go to college in (where else?) Springfield. David returns to his modern life with a new perspective.

Pleasantville is one of my favorite movies because of it's message. It stresses that everyone needs to come out of their shells to become who they truly are. Life has never been as simple or noble as we believe America has been in the past. It shows that intolerance is rarely far away and the lengths those who are intolerant will go to to enforce their beliefs. I was very suprised that this movie was largely ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the year it was released. The special effects were more than extremely unique while the writing, acting and theme were much more compelling than what was noticed. The script was nominated for writing as was the score and the costumes. Joan Allen's performance was much more compelling than the actual Oscar winner that year (Gwinneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare In Love"). I felt also that Reese Witherspoon, Tobey McGuire and J.T. Walsh should also have been nominated. This movie has so much to say and that is why I selected it was one of the top 25 of the Twentieth Century.