Review of Pleasantville (1998) by Lmo_2045 — 26 Feb 2015

Most films made are adaptations or reinterpretations of a novel or existing film. It may seem like making them would be simple. But they all come with a set of complications. Directors could incidentally change main parts of the story, or change parts on purpose, and change the entire story, making movie critics all over the world disappointed or glad about the changes to the story.

While watching Pleasantville I thought it was a simple film about change because everything was changing to the opposite of what it started at. But after looking at it closely I realized it’s actually a reinterpretation of the story of Adam and Eve, and like all films it came with its set of complications.

For the film to be a reinterpretation of the story it has to have similarities. In both there were two main characters. In Pleasantville David is the obedient character who is Adam; Jennifer is the rebel who is Eve. David and Adam both wanted to follow the rules and avoid trouble, but in the end they both broke a rule. Jennifer would break most rules and not care about the consequences; Eve was easily tempted into breaking a rule without thinking about its effect. By the end they both realized that you should think of what consequences your actions will have before acting. The quiet calm, Pleasantville is the quiet and beautiful garden in Adam and Eve. In both stories an apple is the main object, but they symbolize something different. The themes in both stories are change and knowledge. In both, the setting, personalities of characters, and knowledge known, changed throughout the story.

Differences are what changed the messages of the stories. People in Pleasantville and Adam and Eve all started out not knowing about anything other than the place they were in. In Pleasantville Jennifer and David introduce knowledge to everyone. The knowledge is not wanted by all, some think it is bad, but in the end it makes Pleasantville better. In the garden a serpent convinces Eve to eat an apple from the forbidden tree. She then convinces Adam to also eat and apple. The apple gives both of them knowledge. For them their lives did not improve. They gained knowledge, but lost their trust to god and were punished and banished from the garden for breaking their only rule: to not eat from the forbidden tree. In Pleasantville the apple represents goodness and knowledge. In Adam and Eve it represents dangerous, forbidden, and goodness. The messages from both stories are the opposite of each other. The message from Adam and Eve is that increase in knowledge and change is not good, that it should not happen. The message from Pleasantville is that increase in knowledge and change is good, that they are important and should happen.

Pleasantville does have similarities to the story of Adam and Eve. But it has more differences. I think that it is not a good reinterpretation of Adam and Eve because the main parts, the apple and the message, are not the same. I believe that in order for the story to be a reinterpretation its message has to be identical to the original. If the message is not the same, the tone and mood change, making the entire story different. Pleasantville’s message is the opposite of Adam and Eve’s, and the apples also represent the opposite making Pleasantville a new different story. It is still an interpretation of the story, but not one that I would approve of.