I was flipping channels during commercials while watching Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel tonight and saw that Pleasantville was playing on Encore.  I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Pleasantville, but I’m always struck by how deeply this movie resonates with me every single time.  It has an irresistible charm that I can’t escape.  I found myself flipping back to Mythbusters later and later from the commercial breaks until finally I stopped flipping back at all.  I knew I had to write something about it.

Pleasantville stars Tobey Maguire as David and Reese Witherspoon as Jennifer, a brother and sister who wind up in the make-believe world of Pleasantville, a Leave It to Beaver-style television program.  Although the initial premise of a mysterious stranger, played by Don Knotts of a similarly quaint town in The Andy Griffith Show, who makes a gift of a magical remote control has been done ad nauseum, even recently with Adam Sandler in Click, it’s what happens subsequently that distinguishes this movie from the rest.  David has few friends and little excitement in his life, so he obsesses about a black-and-white television program and what he believes would be a better life than the one he has thus far managed.  Jennifer has loose morals and a narrow focus, and she doesn’t even realize she’s stuck in a rut.  When the two struggle over control of the remote, they accidentally press a button that puts them both into the television and into the world of Pleasantville.  As I said, it’s not exactly breaking new ground here.

Once within Pleasantville, David works to fit into the confines of his television persona, Bud Parker, while Jennifer has no desire to play out the role as the simple Mary Sue.  It’s to Witherspoon’s credit that she can play Jennifer as a tramp so believably well when in real life she is a nice, pleasant wife and mother.  Anyone expecting to see the saccharin sweet character of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, or the goody two-shoes character of Tracy Flick from Election may be surprised at Reese’s range as an actress and should check out the rest of her body of work, including films such as Freeway which also stars Kiefer Sutherland.  Jennifer’s affect is dramatic as she blazes her way through the halls of Pleasantville High School and aggressively pursues her male classmates.  David, too, discovers that no matter how hard he tries to model his behavior after Bud, he can’t help but alter the events surrounding him.

Gary Ross, who wrote, directed, and produced Pleasantville, and would later write and direct Seabiscuit also starring Tobey Maguire, does a wonderful job weaving the effects caused by the new Bud and Mary Jane into the story.  (It should also be noted that Ross wrote Big, starring Tom Hanks, and Dave, starring Kevin Kline, two other excellent one-word-titled movies with great dramatic flourishes.) When Bud is late for work at the soda shop, his boss, played perfectly in low key by Jeff Daniels, can’t manage to close the shop and literally wears a groove on the countertop by repeatedly wiping it down.  David tries to help Mr. Johnson by suggesting that he simply move on to the next task even if he is not there to help and mistakenly implants the idea of free will that soon leads Mr. Johnson to express his boredom and wonder if there might be more to life than serving perfectly round burgers and deliciously crisp French fries.  Meanwhile, Mary Sue’s aggression while on a date with big man on campus, Chip, leads to a sexual awakening within the high school students and even within her staid television mother, Betty Parker, played by the always sexy Joan Allen.  Despite David’s efforts to repair the damage, it’s clear that Pandora’s Box has now been opened, and things quickly spiral out of control.  In a wonderful touch, Ross visualizes these changes in the town citizenry by imbuing each with full, living color as each awakens to feelings outside their previously normal, black-and-white selves.

WARNING: SPOILER. If you have not seen this movie and are interested in it, do not read further.

Lest you think that the only path toward becoming a fully-developed, colorized person is through sexual activity, David and Jennifer each have to discover their own way.  First to turn is Jennifer who discovers that her new friends crave more information than she could possibly provide.  After she begins to tell her classmates about a story she had once read in a book but hadn’t finished, the once blank pages begin to take form and the story appears.  After David fills in the remaining details of this and other stories, all the books in the library begin to fill and the students discover the pleasure of reading and the library becomes the new cool hangout.  Jennifer herself gets in the act and reads what she remarks is the first novel she has ever completed.  The next morning, she gets her color.  It takes David a lot longer to turn than it did Jennifer or even Bud’s romantic partner, Margaret.  For David, it is only after he stands up to a gang of bullies and comes to the defense of Mrs. Parker that he can earn his color.

As clever and funny as the early scenes are, the most powerful moments of the film occur as the town struggles to deal with the changes taking place.  Mr. Parker, played by the always brilliant William H. Macy, struggles to accept his wife’s new desires and interests, and is especially embarrassed by her sudden colorization.  In a great scene typical of his befuddlement, Mr. Parker roams the house repeating, “Honey I’m home!” and is then unsuited to feed himself without dinner having been prepared and on the table.  Little does he know, his wife has been spending time down at the soda shop with Mr. Johnson who has newly discovered his love for art and a passion for painting.  The other men of the town are equally appalled at these changes and fight to keep things as they have always been: plain and simple.  Things come to a boil after the townspeople riot outside the soda shop and smash the windows containing a nude mural of Mrs. Parker.  Soon, signs appear in town announcing “No Coloreds” and the citizens burn the books, filled with corrupting ideas like those found in Moby Dick and Catcher in the Rye, in the town square.  It becomes clear the film has taken a darker turn and the subsequent imagery is reminiscent of the race riots in the South and the Nazi movement in Europe.

The climax of the film takes place in a courtroom where the leader of the movement to ban the new changes, Big Bob, played by J. T. Walsh the creepy, chair-dragging pedophile locked up with Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade, holds Bud and Mr. Johnson responsible for inciting the townspeople after having painted a newer, more vivid mural on the brick wall of the soda shop.  As was standard in the once segregated South, the “regular” townspeople fill the courtroom, while the “coloreds” occupy the balcony.  However, Big Bob and the jury alike are unprepared to handle David as Bud, who knows that inside each and every one of them are the thoughts and feelings that have lead to this colorization.  He first makes an example of Mr. Parker by getting him to realize and admit that what he misses most about his wife is not the lack of company or the wonderful dinners, but something else that he only knew was there after it was gone.  When Parker realizes the emotions he had suppressed and his desire to be reunited with the woman he loves, he is instantly colored along with a few other citizens in the court.  Next, David turns to Big Bob who, although clearly the villain of the story, has not really delved into the rage building up inside him.  It is only after being pushed to the edge that Big Bob and the rest of the town are colorized.

This movie has dead-on acting performances, great set design, powerful imagery, and nicely understated special effects, but what puts it over the top is its powerful theme.  At the core of the movie is the idea that it takes self-realization and internal exploration in order to become a full, well-rounded person.  For some of the citizens of Pleasantville who plainly have never attempted to live outside their basic lives, the search isn’t very deep yet all the more frightening.  But, for the real world David and Jennifer who represents us, the viewers, we learn that the biggest obstacle is in simply realizing that they weren’t living to their potential.  As in the real world, it’s often easier to see the faults in others than it is to see them in ourselves.  And as soon as we stop looking into ourselves, we stop growing as we should.

"What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, and be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! Grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne’er forgets; may learn a thousand things, not twice the same.”
Robert Browning