"Pleasantville" - A Nice Place to Visit by Homer Yen (c) 1998
If you ever tune into Nick at Nite, it's likely that you'll catch some of those classic tv programs that espoused nothing but heaps of family values. Remember Make Room for Daddy or the Brady Bunch or Leave It To Beaver? Everything was 'swell', a heated romance consisted of holding hands, and it never rained. Pleasantville is another one of those shows featuring a never-ending string of smiles and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Dave is a big fan of this program and has uncanny knowledge of each and every episode. He is especially excited to learn that they'll be having a Pleasantville marathon on tv. But this doesn't bode well with Jen, his outgoing and popular sister. An important date is coming over and she wants to watch MTV. As they struggle for the remote, a surge of energy transports them into Pleasantville in a Twilight Zone-esque sort of way. Now, they become Bud and Mary Sue, children in an all-too-perfect family and residents of an all-too-perfect community. What's worse, their whole world is in black and white.
They have little choice but to go along with what's happening while they try to figure a way out of this unlikely universe. Bud/Dave wants to play it safe and uses his knowledge of the episodes to make sure that the universe remains unchanged. When the Captain of his basketball team asks him a question, for example, he knows what will happen in the near future because he's already seen the episode. However, Mary Sue/Jen completely dislikes the sterile environment. "We are stuck in Nerdville," she exclaims and intends to inject a little life into the community. However, by stirring things up, things begin to change. She introduces into this staid environment shocking, never-before experienced feelings such as passion. Bud/Dave objects at first but then realizes that this newfound sense of existence begins to start a revolution. A renaissance of emotion is underway. For those that feel it, their lives are rewarded with color and an imagination that they could never before attain. However, some want to keep Pleasantville in its original state. This situation divides the community, and it is up to Bud/Dave to find a way for the townsfolk to embrace this new transformation.
"Pleasantville" has many niceties. At its core, it's a movie about discovery. It's sends out a nice message that promotes freedom to explore and to take risks. It paces itself well as the local citizens slowly make their own discoveries of who they are and of the world around them. It's not a movie that will make you kick your heels when you walk out of the theatre. But the movie does live up to its name.
Grade: B
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