pleasantville * * * 1/2 . written and directed by gary ross . photography , john lindley . editing , william goldenberg . production designer , jeannine oppewall . art director , dianne wager . set decorator , jay hart . costumes , judianna makovsky . music director , randy newman . produced by ross , jon kilik , robert j . degus , steven soderbergh . cast : tobey maguire ( david/bud ) , jeff daniels ( johnson ) , joan allen ( betty ) , william h . macy ( george ) , j . t . walsh ( big bob ) , don knotts ( tv repairman ) , marley shelton ( margaret ) , jane kaczmarek ( david's mom ) , reese witherspoon ( jennifer/mary sue ) . a new line release . 116 minutes . pg-13 . simplify , simplify ! exaggerate , exaggerate ! combine those strategies with skill and imagination and you can get immediate , public-pleasing results in comedy and satire . that's what happens in the case of " pleasantville , " the aptly and ironically named first feature by gary ross , the co-writer of the fantasy " big , " and the writer of the fanciful , political " dave . " it is crystal-clear that pleasantville is going to become a popular mega-hit and that just about all regular filmgoers know what to expect . even so : siblings david and jennifer are high-school seniors in 1998 and in an unnamed town they share the problem of an unhappily divorced mother and the problem of people their age . at a school assembly , the students are given a pessimistic report on the future : unemployment , aids , environmental disasters , etc . ( this is not a gratuitous announcement , since its aim is to incite good grades that can make the difference in an increasingly competitive society ) . dave and jennifer may be twins but have different personalities . the girl is what , way back when , used to be called " boy-crazy . " her brother takes refuge from the ( presumed ) unpleasantnesses of life by watching cable reruns of old , 1950s family-type sitcoms . an expert in the series " pleasantville , " he is about to enter and undoubtedly win the $1 . 000 first prize in a contest about " pleasantville . " the two kids , following a nicely planned succession of events , and via a mysteriously appearing tv repairman , find themselves transported to and inside the " pleasantville " sitcom , as the characters dave and mary sue , the children of the impossibly neat and idealized ( by 1950's standards pushed beyond their outer limits ) household of betty and george . we are now in a twilight zone territory , but without that program's darkness -- at least not overtly . getting from reality to fantasy also reminds me of the way orpheus ( in jean cocteau's eponymous film ) goes to another world by entering a mirror . " pleasantville " reflects mores and manners of many a 50's sitcom , only taken to the limit . the opening , establishing scenes of the movie proper are in color . set in april 1958 , the program's world is , unsurprisingly , shown in black and white and shades of gray . what is surprising is that its world is strictly limited to the falsely " ideal , " town of pleasantville . there is nothing beyond its main street , which , reaching its end , loops back to its beginning . it is like those images of a coiled snake biting its own tail . there is no history . there are no books , or rather , there are book covers of some major works but the pages inside are blank . the high school has a winning basketball team where everyone scores baskets . one may wonder which other teams they play . or where anything --no , make this everything else , from clothes to cars to meat --you-name it , comes from . but then " pleasantville " requires blind , and willing , suspension of disbelief ! the sitcom is sanitized to the nth power . this goes beyond pristine picked fences , manicured lawns and perfectly surfaced streets , streets that you could fry the proverbial eggs on , except that the year-round temperature is 72 high , 72 low and never a cloud in sight . ( how do they know what clouds are ? never mind ) . not only are there no bathrooms mentioned , but mary sue's attempt to find one results in an room tiled and empty . at a good clip , mary sue and bud affect the place from a to z . since they " belong " in the sitcom , no one sees them , as we do , like those wiser extra-terrestrials of sci-fi flicks . so what they say and do is not questioned . mary sue gradually makes the sexual education of the youths , and , indeed , her own mother , in a neat reversal of the child teaching her mom the facts of life . bud opens new doors , to art , to books ( that have a content now ) , to feelings . among other transformations there is that of mr . johnson ( jeff daniels ) , who seems to be a dimwit soda jerk until bud , aware that johnson has the repressed soul of an artist , releases it by opening his eyes with the gift of a coffee-table art book . if you use logic , you'll wonder where the book came from ; and how its reproductions of paintings , from old to very modern , can affect so strongly a total visual illiterate . but the name of the game with this film is never to ask questions ! in another reversal , the local firemen do not put out fires , since these do not exist . nor do they set fires , as they did in ray bradbury's ( and francois tuffaut's ) cautionary " fahrenheit 451 . " they only know how to rescue cats from high branches . gradually , as the people of pleasantville begin to change , feel and see new things , humans , objects , and nature go from black-and-white to beautiful colors . the colorizing does not , as a rule , affect the entire image but is applied to one item within it while the main view of the screen remains in black and white . color shows up in often unexpected , symbolic places . the process is beautifully thought out and timed , superbly executed with digital techniques taken farther than in any film i can remember . along with the invasions of color , natural phenomena such as rain also appear . the first half of the movie is a delight , especially if you bear in mind that what it spoofs to the max is not really the life of the 1950s but life in certain 1950's tv programs . there is , however , a limit to one- or two-joke stories . the film's second part becomes increasingly like a view of 1950's society seen by militant eyes of the 1960s . the development revs up its parables , takes us into matters concerning reactionary socio-politics , the mistrust of " the other " and of non-conformism , racism , suppression of ideas ( down to a nazi-ish book burning ) , fear of differences , and so on . things become a bit laborious . the underlying idea that change is good and inevitable , is a good one . potshots at the 50s icons are supplemented by sometimes overt , sometimes subtler ironies about the 1990's . they imply that today trends , fads and above all conformism are , under various guises , not unlike those of 40 years ago . it is a sound notion to suggest that in the 90s we can be as self-centered or obscurantist as the pleasantvillers . but the movie might have condensed all this and made its points in under 116 minutes . still , i cannot give too much weight to this objection since this elaboration , dotting of the i's and crossing of the t's , is better than the ponderously encapsulated didacticism that opens and closes the twilight zone's episodes . pleasantville-the-movie has well-meaning allegorical ambitions , as well as a very tricky and a highly imaginative structure surrounding its exaggerations and simplifications . it also has , with no exceptions , a splendid cast that can be touching ( especially the characters played by joan allen and jeff daniels ) , serio-comic ( the siblings ) , oddly pathetic ( william h . macy , and the smartly conceived heavy , j . t . walsh in his last role ) . above all , it is infinitely more original and inventive than the pedestrian , copycat movies that make up the great majority of what goes on screens small and large , in this our time . " le mauvais gout mene au crime " ( stendhal ) edwin jahiel's movie reviews are at <a href= " http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel " >http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel</a> 
