Starring: Toby Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, William H. Macy.
Pleasantville depicts the story of two teenagers living in the 90's who get sucked into a 1950's sitcom. They find their 90's lifestyle and habits influence the world they have entered to change and view life from a different perspective.
Growing up I hated Pleasantville, mostly because my sisters would constantly repeat watch it. I have been wanting to re-watch this film for the past couple of weeks but I feel like for me it's a film I personally, definitely have to watch on television. Today was that day. My views now on Pleasantville have completely changed, not that I originally thought it was a bad film but that now I can appreciate it for it's true potentially. I wholeheartedly feel like Pleasantville is one of the greats for everything it supplies.
The film as a whole is so individual and one of a kind. It captures the lives of two completely different times and shows a unique perspective of a movement. The film teaches us about the power of being open-minded and how your thoughts can empower and change the world surrounding you. The story also delves into themes such as racism, anti-feminism, sexism, love, sexuality, rape culture, expectations, education, traditionalism and beauty. It makes you think about yourself and how you view things and if that is necessarily the best way.
I feel like for me, the theme that stood out to me was sexuality and more importantly entitlement. We enter a world where they do not know of sexual intercourse or desire and have probably never even imagined it and then we see them learning about it and practising it. This is when I felt it most, when Skip (Paul Walker) comes to Mary Sue's (Reese Witherspoon) house, expecting to pick her up to have sex. Later on in the film we also see a painting of Betty (Joan Allen) naked and moments after seeing that a group of boys go over to her sexually harassing her. As soon as they are exposed to a women's body and sex the men automatically feel like they own it and something that they can just take when they please. I feel as if the film addressed the issue in showing that, that kind of isn't how life works but I also feel like it could have done a lot more on that subject.
The actual visual created is beautiful, there are definitely some very iconic moments that Gary Ross and cinematographer, John Lindley captured. The whole aesthetic of the film, really encapsulates the era and both the suburban ethos and the 90's culture of which the film portrays. I can't even begin to fathom the editing process that went on in post-production to create the divide between black and white and colour.
The mind behind this film is genius, to create a modern day film digitally and to then film as if in the 1950's using black and white style is something you will rarely see in these times. Adding to that, the use of colour as a metaphor, where colour represents the transformation from the simple, routine life that the people from Pleasantville lived by to the life of enlightenment and a new perspective and acceptance.
The acting in this film was surprisingly really good, I feel like Toby Maguire who played David/Bud made an incredible effort and played an amazing character and put of a great performance. He was both strong yet relatable and (at least I felt) was someone you could identify with and you really felt his work. Joan Allen who played Betty was also incredible, you could really feel the emotions she played and understood her. I always felt, with all of the actors, that I believed in the time setting and never really considered it to be the sitcom it was.
Pleasantville is definitely one of the best and iconic films produced. It dealt with some very important issues and thoughts however I don't feel like it was handled in a way that it could have been. The film could have had some great political importance however it did lose points due to the simplicity. Saying that the simplicity did also work, in both the visual aspect and in the way that it was very thought provoking and up for interpretation almost. Pleasantville is a piece of art as well as film with an intriguing story to tell.
