Pleasantville (1998)
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VHS Movie Reviews of Pleasantville (1998)
Movie Review: How about some marshmallow rice-crispy squares? Those are swell.
Summary: 4 Stars
Pleasantville is an underappreciated movie full of interesting, deep concepts hidden fairly well with subtle acting and introspective dialogue, and with not-so-subtle visual images. In fact, the visual aspects of this movie, the blending of color with black-and-white, are incredible at times. Seeing a black-and-white tree burst into flames is quite beautiful. Seeing an entire town visually transform from stale black-and-white to vivid color is technically stunning.
David (Tobey McGuire) is a modern, nerdy teenager who follows a `50s-esque show "Pleasanville", a sitcom of sorts with the shucks and darns expected during the nicest dinner at Mayberry. It's a `50s utopia, where the men wear suits, work 9-to-5, and the women have dinner ready and ironing done promptly. All of that changes when a TV repairman (Don Knotts) gives David a fanciful TV-remote that transports him and his sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) into the TV show.
As a big fan of the show, David - who is now Bud - knows everything about the perfectly balanced town. He believes in the town, and the harmonious nature with which everything works. He knows the town is perfect, and the basketball team has never missed a shot (possibly the funniest part of the movie - SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!) Jennifer - who is now Mary Sue - on the other hand, is a Pleasantville neophyte and none too happy about the step back in time. In no time at all, Mary Sue has her legs wrapped around the town basketball stud Skip (Paul Walker) at Lover's Lane where she teaches him to double-dribble. With Pandora's Box opened, the black-and-white town begins to show incredible changes: vivid colors appear out of nowhere. With color representing change and maybe even improvement, it's up to Bud to not only maintain the status quo, but also to explain the rapid changes to the townsfolk as he tries to find a way home amidst the chaos.
I could have done without the over-the-top racial connotation, with the town beginning a counter-rebellion against the "coloreds", and the infidelity angle was contradictory to the movie's actual message, but it's easily ignorable because of the superb acting and ground-breaking cinematography. Great movie.
Movie Review: Thought Provoking and Underappreciated
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't believe I missed this classic.
Turning the overused and predictable time-travel concept on its head, Pleasantville aims extremely high, posing the mother of all existential questions - would we do it the same way if given a chance to re-write our own history? With the exception of some very leaden sixties revisionism, the answer is ingenious and thought provoking.
Living in the highly sexualized, single-parented miasma of pre-Y2K suburbia, teenagers David and Jennifer Wagner (Tobey Maguire & Reese Witherspoon) find themselves transported into a 1950's sitcom called Pleasantville that quickly becomes their black and white purgatory of Eisenhower-era rectitude.
The re-creation of Pleasantville in its original, sinless state is pitch perfect. Breakfast consists of waffles, pancakes and ham steaks slathered in butter and piled sky high with trans-fat be damned glee. The High School experience is completely asexual with the most pressing academic and social concerns being term papers mining the origins of the local fire house and who is getting "pinned" at the big dance. To complete the post card, the local barber dispenses platitudes, the basketball team always wins and the aforementioned firefighters do nothing but rescue cats in trees - all locked in a serene, soulless contentment.
In the middle of this sit-com stereotype come David and Jennifer (now Bud and Mary Sue) who in addition to finding a way out, have to cope with their on-screen parents, George and Betty (great performances by William H. Macy and Joan Allen) and their own personal awakening as they live within the suffocating sterility of their all-to-real, scripted surroundings.
Fed up with the cynicism of his life in the 1990s, Bud's original thought is to completely embrace the simplicity of the town and adapt his behavior to the morality and expecations as they currently exist. As a counterpoint, Mary Sue's vision is to bring the "enlightenment" of modern vice to Pleasantville at every opportunity - both siblings causing objects and characters to spontaneously transition from black and white to color as the revelations about the nature of themselves and their fictional society "corrupts" their friends and neighbors.
Despite their best (or worst intentions) the entire moral and social fabric of the town very quickly unravels creating "white" versus "colored" anarchy that in very short order breeds a backlash of knee-jerk censorship, town-hall mobs, blacklisting, random book-burnings, adultery, attempted rape and just for good measure, the Suffragetting of "traditional" gender roles. The clear, underlying message being that whatever the fall-out or unintended consequences, Man's pursuit of knowledge should be secular, unerring and absolute - very directly taking to task what they perceive as the soft, conformist, underbelly of most organized religions.
For both good and bad, Pleasantville is the Book of Genesis as it might be told by Norman Lear or Bill Maher - Enlightement is both vaccine and contagion - all Nirvana is essentially a conservative falsehood with Original Sin denoting the rise of Man rather than his fall.
A very heady chaser to wash down your multiplex nachos - and the perfect date movie - if you happen to be dating Alanis Morissette.
That being said, my only substantial criticism of the film, as a film, is that the avalanche of dysfunction that dominates the second half seemed far too neat and contrived in the service of the film's glaring progressive themes - and came very close to overwhelming the best efforts of a stellar, ensemble cast. However, even against this backdrop (and a few gaping plot holes) Pleasantville remains a very powerful, poignent and beautiful film especially given the bold aspirations of the premise.
As for the technicals, Pleasantville showcases some extraordinary sfx and cinematography, a brilliant score by Randy Newman and the return of the late, great Don Knotts to theatrical filmaking in a surprisingly robust role - nothing wrong with that.
While I am not sure if I would enjoy living in any version of Pleasantville - the town certainly makes a "swell" day trip - take it!
Movie Review: Sly, Rewarding Fantasy
Summary: 4 Stars
Gary Ross's 1998 hit "Pleasantville" came as a, well, pleasant, surprise. This reviewer tends to shun works whose hallmarks are teen angst and cleverness for its own sake. Pleasantville, however, despite rolling in cleverness, manages to transcend its cleverness and its teen-angst focus, and exudes genuine charm and something of a soul. This is due partly to the excellent performances, partly to the sharp production that includes a wonderful original score by Randy Newman (yup, another one) incorporating iconic music of the 1950s, and partly to the fact that the film's clear point of view isn't heavy-handed.
David Wagner (Tobey Maguire) is a nerdy high-schooler in the 1990s whose cheerless home, divorced parents, depressed mother, and contemptuous, slutty sister, Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon), have left him susceptible to the wistful charms of a 1950s black and white TV sitcom about one of those always and effortlessly Happy Families. The show, Pleasantville, features two siblings named Bud and Mary Sue who are about David's and Jennifer's ages. David is so addicted to this sitcom that, as the film opens, he is preparing to watch a weekend marathon of the show, and to compete in a contest among devotees to see who can remember the most details from the entire history of the program.
Just as David sits down to the beginning of the marathon, Jennifer appears and claims TV rights: she had planned to watch a rock concert that evening in the company of the school's most notorious stud, who she plans to seduce. David and Jennifer begin to struggle over the TV remote and break it, apparently rendering the issue moot. However, David's acute longing for the tranquillity and happiness portrayed in Pleasantville attracts the notice of a mysterious TV "repairman" (Don Knotts) who suddenly appears on the doorstep with a new "remote". The struggle for control of the TV is reignited, but this time, as David and Jennifer tug at the remote, they push a button that draws them through the television set and into the world of Pleasantville, which was on as they fought.
In an eyeblink, David and Jennifer Wagner find themselves cast in the roles of Bud and Mary Sue Parker, complete with era-appropriate clothing ("five pounds of underwear" Jennifer hisses, tugging at the pointy, underwire bra, girdle, slip, and stockings under the poodle skirt, demure blouse, and sweater she finds herself wearing). The two have been transported from the splashy, morally freewheeling, noisy technicolor world of the 1990s into the black-and-white, serene, orderly world of Pleasantville. Mom and Dad (marvellously rendered without a trace of irony by Joan Allen and William H. Macy) never quarrel; meals are fulsome and on time; everyone eats together at the table; the basketball team always wins its games; the weather is always perfect.
Guided by David's knowledge of the show, he and Jennifer cautiously begin navigating their new world as they try to figure out how to get home. Inevitably, the mores of David and Jennifer begin to impact the world of Pleasantville - and vice versa. And that last factor is the one that saves the film from predictability. David, initially more comfortable with and accepting of the limitations of Pleasantville, wants to get home without disturbing this cultural environment, to which he at first applies a sort of hands-off Prime Directive. Jennifer, on the other hand, initially despises her role as Mary Sue, is bored witless, and sets out to make mischief as soon as she can, starting with a heavy makeout session in Lover's Lane with the captain of the basketball team. As Jennifer introduces the disturbance of sex into the equilibrium of Pleasantville, the effect ripples out, and the mature inhabitants of the town are startled to see their enviroment shifting into . . . color. Of course, with the splotches of color (a red rose, a green sportscar, a tight red sweater, pink and green bathroom tiles. . .) come shifts in behavior and outlook, mostly concentrated among the young high school crowd.
It looks as if David and Jennifer are the ones effecting change, but eventually it becomes clear that they are also being changed. David finds himself, surprisingly, rebelling against the limitations of Pleasantville, and uncovers a decidedly non-nerdy core. Jennifer, on the other hand, finds that the town slut role has become rather old, and in the persona of the studious Mary Sue, uncovers a surprising new direction. By the time David and Jennifer find the way home, they have more or less switched "sides" where Pleasantville is concerned - of course, it's the new, full-color Pleasantville, but. . .
The filmmakers are not shy about their central viewpoint that it really isn't possible to repress the essential self, and that the dangers of freedom and self-expression are worth its rewards. Nevertheless, film also points up aspects of modern culture that can make a place like Pleasantville look so attractive. Nicely written and produced, Pleasantville works very well as pure fantasy, as well as allegory. This reviewer has watched the film several times with great pleasure. Tobey Maguire's endearing performance as the quirky David is the core of the film, but he is ably supported by Reese Witherspoon's wicked Jennifer, who is not nearly as dumb as she pretends, and some surprisingly moving moments from Joan Allen and William H. Macy as Mom and Dad Parker.
You will find the film's double bulls-eye most apparent in the number of people who wish David and Jennifer had left well enough alone in Pleasantville.
Movie Review: A trip down nostalgia lane...
Summary: 5 Stars
1998's Pleasantville is a charmingly executed parable about introducing change to a closed society, and the ripple effect that even the smallest changes can produce. Siblings David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are polar opposites; nerdy David is obsessed with the ficticious 1950s sitcom Pleasantville (an homage to Leave It To Beaver and other picture-perfect small-screen families), while Jennifer hangs out with the fast crowd, smoking and snaring potential dates.
After a mysterious TV repairman (Don Knotts) gives the two a remote, they're transported into the black-and-white, picture-perfect town of Pleasantville, where the basketball team makes perfect baskets every shot and a nutritious dinner is always on the table (thanks, mom!). Horrified, the two at first try to desperately find a way back. David has the advantage of being intimately familiar with the Pleasantville universe, and tries to steer Jennifer away from any seismic outbursts that would be out of place in placid Pleasantville, such as swearing, smoking, and heaven forbid, s-e-x. Jennifer has her own agenda, though, and Lovers Lane soon becomes more than just a place to stargaze and hold hands. With each change comes the slow but sure colorization: first bubblegum turns pink, then the more "adventurous" teens end up in color.
David and Jennifer's "parents," George (William H. Macy) and Betty (Joan Allen) Parker, are stamped straight out of 1950s legend; George begins every evening by announcing "honey, I'm home!" and Betty's always on call to whip up massive breakfasts or hors d'oeuvres. David, now "Bud," works in the burger joint owned by Bill (Jeff Daniels), who's paralyzed by indecision and any break in routine. But a funny thing happens; the once-wild Jennifer slowly becomes more scholarly and more and more like her TV counterpart than her former "bad girl" self, while once-timid David learns to stand up for himself and to fight for what he believes in.
In Pleasantville, the old guard is threatened by all of the changes: the once-empty books in the library are filled, Bill realizes his life's dream of becoming a painter, using every shade under the sun, rockabilly and rock and roll are heard...resulting in violence and trials that parallel McCarthyism. Betty and other wives begin to yearn for a fulfilling life outside of the home, leaving their husbands hungry and confused.
Although the visual metaphors are heavy-handed at times, Pleasantville does an admirable job at capturing the balance between modern uncertainties (at school, the teens are given sobering statistics about AIDS, global warming, and underemployment) and our rose-tinted nostalgia for the past. The visual design deserves special mention, and the classic soundtrack is loaded with gems by Pat Boone, Miles Davis, Etta James, Elvis and Buddy Holly. Pleasantville was nominated for two dozen awards, and it's easy to see why. A delightful film for the entire family.
Movie Review: A Disgusting Anti-Family, Anti-American Radical Leftist Propaganda Film
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm not sure who wrote, directed, or produced "Pleasantville" but clearly there is a radical leftist agenda underlying this movie. Whoever is behind this film is using it to shatter the nostalgic view that most Americans have about the 1950's: traditional family, religion, celibacy, self-restraint, moral order, etc. while at the same time, promoting immorality as "cool" and "good".
At work in this film is something called "Cultural Marxism", the process of tearing down traditional moral Western society (towards preparing for an eventual Marxist state). One element of Cultural Marxism is to create disorder and even chaos by promoting liberal lifestyles which are known to be destructive (we see such promotion in this film). The idea is to "normalize" deviant behavior, yet knowing full well the eventual outcome will be misery for all. Marxists rationalize such destruction with, "the end will justify the means", ie. "first we have to destroy the 'oppressive' United States before we can build our dream utopia". Back when I was in college (early 60's) I knew several students and professors who preached this type of thinking. They were shockingly open about it, saying things like, "we'll make films and TV shows which will gradually condition Americans into accepting ever more deviant and destructive lifestyles, and in 50 years, this nation will rot from it's own decadence". In that time (early 1960's) things were still very innocent in America and I ignored what they said as words of crazy radicals. But one thing was clear, they hated this country with a passion, and they were determined to destroy it.
The message of the film is, "moral standards are bad" and "as long as it feels good, it is good". Very sick, twisted thinking. Quite evil actually. I will find out who made this film and investigate their other work and background.