Pleasantville starts off at a high school in the 90's where we meet the main characters, David and Jennifer (played by Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon). David and Jennifer are twins but couldn't be more different. David is a geeky kid who has a love of an old 1950's sitcom called Pleasantville and Jennifer is in the popular group and spends all of her time focusing on impressing boys and acting "cool". At the beginning of the movie we learn that David and Jennifer's mother is going out of town for the weekend so both kids make their own plans for their time home alone. David plans to watch the Pleasantville Marathon on television that night and Jennifer plans on inviting over a pretty, but stupid boy to watch a big concert on TV with her (and whatever comes after that). The twins end up fighting over who gets to use the big TV downstairs and end up breaking their remote in the process. Mysteriously, a TV repairman instantly appears at their door to replace their remote. While finding them a new remote, the repairman becomes impressed with David's knowledge of Pleasantville. The repairman finally departs, leaving the twins taken aback by this strange encounter, but happy to have a new remote (even if it is a weird looking one). They soon begin to fight over the remote once more and in the process David accidentally clicks one of the buttons which magically transports them into the TV show. The rest of the movie consists of David (now Bud) and Jennifer(now Mary-Sue)'s time spent in a black and white TV world where things are always perfect and stagnant. The influence the main characters have among other civilians of Pleasantville causes their world to change in unexpected ways, like turning things to color!
As I said earlier, this is one of my absolute favorite movies. The shots are so beautiful and the characters and the message of the story are both very heartwarming and eye-opening. This movie is obviously a study on human conformity as well as loneliness.
Fun facts:
- Pleasantville is the first film to ever have the majority of the movie scanned, processed, and recorded digitally.
- The movie was shot entirely in color and then parts were desaturated digitally.
- Some of the songs in the movie such as "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck and Debussy's "Claire de Lune" were revolutionary songs when they were originally released, which symbolizes change in the movie.
- J.T. Walsh, who plays the Mayor of Pleasantville in the movie died before the movie was actually released (it was his last film).
- Fiona Apple, who has two songs in the movie, made her music video for "Across the Universe" Pleasantville-themed.
- Pleasantville won Oscars for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Music/Original Score (by Randy Newman).
- Tobey Maguire received a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Young Actor/Actress for his role as David/Bud.
This movie is rated PG-13 for sexual references. The references aren't very inappropriate and I think a kid as young as 11 would be fine watching this movie.
Link to the trailer
This is one of my favorite movies too. I particularly liked the references to "colored" (literally) people and the exploration of change in society, asking which is better, an ordered world with libraries full of books with blank pages or a world with turmoil and truly inquisitive minds.
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