Pleasantville
In 1998, two very similar movies came out that showcased the brilliant sentiments of fifties television. One of them was in fact about a world manufactured that way for a reality television show that only star Truman was unaware of. The other film, Pleasantville, has not received such a long standing success as the former; fading away into obscurity despite the golden careers of it’s two leads. However, returning to a film that was most beloved for me, I can see its charm despite the grey areas that surround it.
Pleasantville stars Toby Maguire and Reece Weatherspoon as sister and brother; David and Jennifer. The pair are polar opposites, David is lonely, obsessed with the television programme whereas Jennifer is popular and obsessed with boys. When a fight over a television leads them to break the remote, a strange repair man appears and gives them a new one. However, this is a magical remote that takes them into the black and white world of Pleasantville where everything is seemingly perfect. But can David and Jennifer adjust to a live kept behind the lines or are they aching to set something free in the town?
Director Gary Ross (who famously adapted the first Hunger Games movie because I am subconsciously linking films this week,) has created a truly gorgeous movie if it is somewhat over sentimental. It’s pretty simple, although effectively beautiful; as David and Jennifer blaze (sometimes literally) through the small town, they start to expose the once repressed population to experiences such as sex and pleasure. As the sheltered townsfolk begin to realise they is so much more than roads that are connected as one, they begin to shed their black and white exteriors, bathing the boring townsfolk in a whole world of Technicolor.
What Ross does with such a concept is to help give characters more meaning. It isn’t just sex that opens up the door to people. It’s love, it’s rain, it’s anger and it’s intellect. Pleasantville is teaming with this hidden spectrum of emotions that have been repressed by the television show and, in this case, J.T. Walsh and his town of disgruntled fathers. After all, in Pleasantville it is the youth that tap into this first, spreading it around to adults who have longed for something more. Ross touches upon the importance of being yourself, trusting your instincts and emotions as well as dealing somewhat with race issues and prejudice.
Pleasantville is ridiculously cheesy and yes, boasts Maguire as a lead despite his lack of appeal. It takes a while to really gather steam too, with a far more condescending tone to fifties television than is needed. But if you stick with it, it will open your world to things you took granted particularly how intense colours are and how beautiful rain can feel for the first time. And while our leads become wiser, it’s their adult counterparts that we feel for most with great acting from Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen. Definitely making you feel warm and cosy on the inside without making you feel ill…
It’s all rather, pleasant.
TTFN
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