Here we have two reviews, the first one is basically devoid of major spoilers. If you've seen a trailer, you know the spoilers in this first review. However, the second review is a spoil-fest. It is however a pretty damn good review. This'll be the last reviews till mine... hopefully Friday Morning. Till then, here's the word on a town where it never rains, PLEASANTVILLE...
I saw Pleasantville yesterday in D.C. and I can still feel the warm glow of it inside me. It's like that great meal you have at a restaurant which you don't want to end, but when it does you can still feel it all through you. You walk in off the street, sit down, and look through the menu. It is not exotic. You see nothing remarkable written down, and so you take your time. You relax. The waiters never rush you with your order. The food arrives. And then you take the first bite...
You think you recognize the dishes as they come out to you with perfect timing, each one arriving with the last bite of the previous course; but as you move from the appetizer to the main course, you quickly realize that each is completely fresh. You've never had it prepared like this before. The flavor improves with each bite, and, if you take your time, you can taste each subtle flavor. The parts may be different, but blended together, they form a wonderful melange of satire and fairy tale, spiced with just enough pathos to satisfy even the hungriest person.
Watching this film, I covered the spectrum of emotion from belly laughs to eventual catharsis. The audience in Washington D.C. (a few hundred cinephiles) gave it a heartfelt round of applause at the end. We all love independent and foreign films enough to pay to go to a series of seven such films (sight unseen) each fall and spring (usually before we even get a whiff of them in the conventional press). The films are all chosen by Harlan Jacobsen (former editor of film comment) [Note to Harry, if you want the web site for this series I can pass it on to you. This is not meant to be a commercial. I am just trying to give you an idea of the type of person who was in the audience, and to alert anyone in the cities with this series of something that might interest them]. The audience ranged in age from late teens to senior citizen. Almost everyone was applauding at the end (loudly--though they weren't quite so loud as the audience at the first Independence Day showing when the Star Wars re-release trailers came up--that's the loudest I have heard any crowd in a movie theatre--though a certain upcoming movie in May of next year will change all of that I am sure).
At the end of the film, Harlan Jacobsen and another film critic (a well informed professor at American University, whose name I can't remember) led an audience discussion of the film and its merits. There were three or four voices of dissent, but I pegged them as the sort who enjoy picking apart movies more than they do actually watching them (there are always a few in the crowd). Aside from the people who claimed they couldn't suspend their disbelief, the response from the audience was overwhelmingly positive, I thought.
I found the journey from black and white sitcom to world of color moving (a minor spoiler that every trailer points directly at so I do not feel badly about discussing it). This is a really strong element of the film. The metaphor is worked into the fabric of the film completely. A note: the guest critic leading the discussion said that the whole film was actually shot in color and then bleached of color in the scenes requiring black and white, or a mix of color and black and white. In the mixed scenes, some of the black and white was actually tinged with color to relieve the initial striking contrast that early tests showed in the process. The end result is seamless, and as surprising as those first mixed images of Roger Rabbit were some ten years ago.
There are many metaphors running throughout the film, but to point them out, or the various themes and subtexts, would ruin the surprise. There are two things I will say without explaining them, however. Garden of Eden is one. The other is to mention that the screenwriter/first-time director, Gary Ross (Dave, Big), had a father who was blacklisted in the McCarthy era. You should get my meaning after you see the film.
One last warning: Don't read the reviews with spoilers!!! Go to see the film cold. Just let it take you over.
Enjoy the film on Thursday, Harry! I have no doubts that you will.
(Call me Big Rube if you print this)
Here's someone that feels the movie is just about as perfect as a film can get. God I hope he's right. I'm dying to see this sucker. I mean, the script just killed me, and these friggin reviews have me frothing at the mouth. I loved BIG and DAVE, and this script is better than both of those. Keep your fingers crossed people. BTW there are quite a few spoilers in the below review so watch out!!!
Humachs Review
Pleasantville: Not as simple as black and white
My first impression when I saw the trailer for this film was that it’s just another take on The Truman Show. In a certain way it is, in that in The Truman Show everyone is clued in that the world Truman Burbank lives in is fake, while in Pleasantville the tables are turned in that it’s only two people that know the world is fake, while everyone else thinks that it’s real. It is a given that people are going to compare this film to The Truman Show, but it would be unfair to do so. For one thing this film is much more daring in dealing with risky topics(race confrontation, pressures to conform to society) and all of the issues are handled with care, while never leaving the comedy totally out of the film.
When one goes to a movie there is always the aspect of disbelief that you are asked to believe and in this case it is that two teenagers are zapped into a T.V. show called Pleasantville. The show is from the 50’s and is in black and white(the film was filmed in color and the black and white was added digitally). Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play the two teenagers who find themselves in an all to happy T.V. show. There first reaction is naturally one of being frightened and annoyed by the disconvience. Witherspoon’s first reaction is that she needs to get back to reality(but what is reality?) so she can meet her date. What is very telling of the tone that this movie takes is the quick scene after that of the boyfriend knocking at the door of Witherspoon’s house and when there is no answer his first reaction is to call her a “Bitch”.
Reese Witherspoon plays a slutty character, while in contrast Tobey Maguire plays more of a nerd, who is fascinated by the old T.V. show Pleasantville(possibly wishing his life was like the lives in Pleasantville). Right away it is clear that Witherspoon isn’t going to play the part of the “nice 50’s poodle skirt wearing girl” and because of this slowly causes Pleasantville to start to change. Even Maguire causes this effect unintentionally by suggesting that the people in Pleasantville start thinking for themselves, trying different things, and not sticking to a routine. What starts to happen on account of this is that the residents of Pleasantville start to become aware of their sexuality, the pleasures of reading, and the right to be different rather than conform. In other words their own individual passions are opened up for them to explore. The exploration however causes new things to happen such as the emergence of color(in the world around them and on themselves), an actual fire breaking out(in a great comedic moment involving the ever amazing Joan Allen), and the want of knowledge. As one might expect this is all met with anger from the “older” generation of Pleasantville(which could be compared easily to Big Brother of 1984), which commulates in book burnings(Fahrenheit 451, Hitler), an unfair trial(To Kill a Mockingbird), and even a Shawshank Redemption moment. Let me get back though to Witherspoon’s character. While at the beginning of the film she is a typical stereotypical character it is surprising to see the care that is taken to show the change over her self-esteem and attitude. Her character starts to look and feel three-dimensional and shows how the changes in Pleasantville are good and not bad, as the “older generation” would have you believe.
The most provocative question of all though is the parallels between Maguire and Witherspoon’s characters to Adam and Eve. Don Knotts plays a sort of T.V. genie that caused the two characters to get inside Pleasantville. Unfortunately Knotts isn’t happy with what Maguire and Witherspoon are causing to happen in the once peaceful town of Pleasantville. . “I’m concerned with what is happening to some of the old episodes,” Knotts’ character says to Maguire, when he’s trying to get him to leave Pleasantville. Knotts is the equivalent of God running an experiment or in other words putting Adam and Eve back in the garden of Eden, but once again not liking what he sees, but can’t change it because its human nature to become the way they are. The commotion even goes so far as barring “colored people” from stores and making them sit separate from the black and white people(parallels anyone??). Of course I’m not going to go any further because this film needs to be experienced and to have you form your own opinion of it. While the sedulity of the film fades and becomes far more blunt with its point, the comedic elements are always there some where. This film won’t make you question your reality, like The Truman Show, but it will possibly make you feel like you’re looking into a mirror and you don’t like what you see.
A+
Starring: (Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, and the late J.T. Walsh
Writer/Producer/Director: Gary Ross
PG-13 (language, sexual references)
