Pleasantville

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Pleasantville

73% Liked It
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Pleasantville

Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels

Two 1990's teenagers find themselves in a 1950's sitcom where their influence begins to profoundly change that complacent world.

Id: 10902922

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Recent Reviews

Pleasantville Recent Reviews
  • hypathio7
    August 31, 2009
    hypathio7
    This and Purple Rose of Cairo are both about disrupted routine and comparing the fictional world of 50's TV or 30's movies to real life. I like the effects and all the performances (though Don Knotts is a little hokey). But the theme more than anything is what makes this story ...( read more)so enjoyable for me. The sex, music, color, art, library books, and general spirit of change that stirs up this innocent, gray, small town (I mean small town! Where there is nothing outside of Pleasantville!), bigoted, 50's TV sitcom world of the status quo, is creatively visualized.
  • thmtsang
    January 11, 2009
    thmtsang
    Interesting movie about siblings being transported into a make believe time.
  • Redlats
    August 31, 2008
    Redlats
    The idea of this movie is brilliant. A couple of kids from the 90's get thrown into the world of a 50's B&W sitcom where everything is just peachy. Peachy yes, but not very real. The firemen have never rescued anything other than a cat in a tree. The basketball team has never...( read more) lost. David and Jennifer manage to introduce Pleasantville to feelings which changes everything.
  • crackingdanio
    April 28, 2008
    crackingdanio
    totally original, fantastic direction
  • Galeocerdo
    March 14, 2008
    Galeocerdo
    I cannot remember it well enough to evaluate it properly, but I love the idea. The story is like a 'Wizard of Oz' doppleganger, a loss of innocence and discovery of truth through color, imagination and rebellion.
  • beccimoo
    December 9, 2009
    beccimoo
    its, erm....pleasant
  • scattergood07
    November 21, 2009
    scattergood07
    A really enjoyable and 'pleasant' film to watch.
  • magnolia12883
    November 16, 2009
    magnolia12883
    Gary Ross' delightful, funny, thought-encouraging (if not provoking) parable is a modern-day take on an old message. David (Tobey Maguire) is a fairly typical suburban high school geek who is in love with a 50s TV Land-style sitcom called "Pleasantville." His sister Jennifer (Ree...( read more)se Witherspoon) is a pretty typical teenage girl, obsessed with boys, chewing gum and going to the mall, smoking and having sex, and mortified to be related to such a dweeb. However, David uses the sitcom not merely as entertainment, but as a form of escapism from his very modern American existence - absentee father, neglectful mother (Jane Kaczmarek), bickering self-absorbed sister. His sister appears to be all surface and precious little depth, but may in fact have something inside her that she isn't even aware of. David is planning his night around a "Pleasantville" marathon contest on TV, while his sister invites the class hunk over to "watch the concert on MTV" (or so she says). Fighting over the remote, it breaks, and the two are saved by a crusty old TV repairman (Don Knotts, himself no stranger to 50s sitcoms) who has one or two quirks. He gives them a new, funky-looking remote and before long the two are transported into Pleasantville; not the show, but the town within the show. David is Bud and Jennifer's Betty Sue. Their new parents are George and Betty Parker (William H. Macy and Joan Allen), a typical 50s workaday "businessman" and his housewife. David takes Bud's job at the soda-shop, overseen by the absent-minded, routine-obsessed manager Bill Johnson (Jeff Daniels). Soon, Jennifer (who isn't above change herself) is coaxing her new friends into using words like "cool" and having sex up at Lover's Lane with the captain of the basketball team (Paul Walker), while David (also adaptable, we find) tries to encourage her not to change the world around them. But it's too late, and soon the black-and-white utopia turns into a partially Technicolor wonderland of new images...and new ideas. This is much to the chagrin of the seemingly nice but intolerant town Mayor "Big Bob" (J.T. Walsh, in his last performance), who doesn't like the newly-discovered "liberties" and "looks" of his town. This intolerance spreads, and before too long we've got "grays" vs. "coloreds," segregation and the burning of books. Gary Ross, who wrote, produced and directed, was the screenwriter of "Dave" (1993), a delightful political fable which pitted an ordinary man against a somewhat corrupt and cynical political system, imbuing it with idealism and new takes on old ideas. Here, he tells an old story in a new way, not with metaphors and symbolism, but rather spelling it out with Metaphors and Symbolism. Upon reflection, it's all fairly obvious, but is remarkably effective; it just plain works. Maguire and Witherspoon are solid in the two young leads, and Allen and Macy are spot-on as the 50s sitcom-style archetypes they're portraying. Walsh is a reliable heavy, and Daniels provokes somewhat of a sense of surprise at his newfound depths. Ross' screenplay is funny and clever, not above the obviousness of its message, but with remarkable heart. The film is also a glorious physical production, with a mixture of black and white and Technicolor cinematography by John Lindley - understand, I'm not talking about black and white intercut with color (like much of the work of Oliver Stone), but rather some shots employing both hand-in-hand in the same frame; the effect is breathtaking to behold. The score by Randy Newman is sometimes playful, sometimes serious, always great to listen to. With a clear message, a great physical design, and a nice story, this is a complete and utter gem.

    NOTE: The film was nominated for 3 Oscars for Art Direction-Set Decoration, Costume Design and Music.
  • spacecasefukface
    November 12, 2009
    spacecasefukface
    beautiful and thoughtful...starting out you think this is a generic comedy .. but in the end its dramatic roots shine proving to the viewer how wonderful this film is
  • arthurnhk
    November 12, 2009
    arthurnhk
    take the colors inside of you out
    amazing story,
    can go a little futher though
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