"Pleasantville" as about a pair of modern teenagers who are transported into a black-and-white 50s TV show. That scenario has disaster potential of FEMA proportions, so when the filmmakers avoided making a post-modern film version of "Gilligan's Island" starring Will Ferrell is half the battle. And director Gary Ross got just about everything else about "Pleasantville" half-right, which makes for a halfway decent viewing experience, nowhere near as bad as it could be, but not as good either.
The look of the scenes in the sitcom small-town is half-right -- the costumes, hairstyles and set decorations are perfect, but the pretty black-and-white cinematography and odd camera angles are more reminiscent of an art movie by Scorcese or Woody Allen than grainy single-set 50s TV. The casting is half-right. Don Knotts as the mysterious TV repairman who transforms people into sitcom characters? Perfect. Tobey Maguire as the nerdy, unpopular teen obsessed with an old family sitcom? Way too easy. Looking at Tobey Maguire back in 1998, you assumed he was a geek, so he coasts on his charisma deficit and doesn't bother creating much of a character. Reese Witherspoon as the slutty girl who introduces sexual liberation into the staid 1950s? Brilliant. This was before anyone knew how good she was, and her depth and intelligence shine through this gimmicky role -- her sense of mischief in her early sitcom scene is hilarious, her transformation into a more thoughtful young woman is quite moving. Jeff Daniels as the soda jerk with artistic aspirations? Confused. Is his character stupid or repressed? Daniels never figures it out so he plays it both ways and winds up just kind of stiff and awkward. Finally, the politics of "Pleasantville" are halfway thought-provoking. A few scenes of book burning and threatened gang rape are enough to make you wonder if "Pleasantville" is about the sentimental impulse at the heart of fascism. But that's kind of intense for an American movie so it almost literally backs away from that idea in a bizarre edit and becomes a sentimental movie about self-acceptance and self-actualization. Which is fine, just not incredibly distinctive. Good but not great.
The look of the scenes in the sitcom small-town is half-right -- the costumes, hairstyles and set decorations are perfect, but the pretty black-and-white cinematography and odd camera angles are more reminiscent of an art movie by Scorcese or Woody Allen than grainy single-set 50s TV. The casting is half-right. Don Knotts as the mysterious TV repairman who transforms people into sitcom characters? Perfect. Tobey Maguire as the nerdy, unpopular teen obsessed with an old family sitcom? Way too easy. Looking at Tobey Maguire back in 1998, you assumed he was a geek, so he coasts on his charisma deficit and doesn't bother creating much of a character. Reese Witherspoon as the slutty girl who introduces sexual liberation into the staid 1950s? Brilliant. This was before anyone knew how good she was, and her depth and intelligence shine through this gimmicky role -- her sense of mischief in her early sitcom scene is hilarious, her transformation into a more thoughtful young woman is quite moving. Jeff Daniels as the soda jerk with artistic aspirations? Confused. Is his character stupid or repressed? Daniels never figures it out so he plays it both ways and winds up just kind of stiff and awkward. Finally, the politics of "Pleasantville" are halfway thought-provoking. A few scenes of book burning and threatened gang rape are enough to make you wonder if "Pleasantville" is about the sentimental impulse at the heart of fascism. But that's kind of intense for an American movie so it almost literally backs away from that idea in a bizarre edit and becomes a sentimental movie about self-acceptance and self-actualization. Which is fine, just not incredibly distinctive. Good but not great.