Review of Pleasantville (1998) by Martin D — 11 Dec 2011

David (Tobey Maguire) and his sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are siblings leading dramatically different high school social lives. Jennifer is shallow and extroverted, while David is shy, introverted and spends most of his time watching television. One evening while their mother (Jane Kaczmarek) is away from home, David and Jennifer fight over the use of the downstairs TV; Jennifer wants to watch an MTV concert, while David needs the TV in order to watch a marathon of his favorite show, Pleasantville, a black and white 1958 sitcom that centers around the idyllic Parker family. During their fight, the remote control breaks and the TV cannot be turned on manually.

A mysterious TV repairman (Don Knotts) shows up uninvited, and quizzes David on Pleasantville before giving him a strange-looking remote control. The repairman leaves, and David and Jennifer promptly resume fighting. However, they are somehow transported into the television. David and Jennifer find themselves in the Parkers' black and white Pleasantville living room. David tries to reason with the repairman (who communicates with him through the Parkers' television set) but succeeds only in chasing him away. David and Jennifer must now pretend they are, respectively, Bud and Mary Sue Parker, two of the main characters in the show.

David and Jennifer witness the wholesome nature of the town, such as a group of firemen rescuing a cat out of a tree. David tells Jennifer that they must stay "in character" and not disrupt the lives of the Pleasantville citizens, who do not notice any physical differences between the old Bud and Mary Sue and David and Jennifer. In order to keep the show's plot in line, Jennifer agrees to go on a date with a boy from high school, but during it she has sex with the boy, a concept entirely unknown to him and everyone else in the town.

Slowly, things in Pleasantville begin changing from black and white into color, including flowers and the faces of people who have experienced bursts of passion or change. Meanwhile, David becomes friends with Mr. Johnson (Jeff Daniels), owner of the local soda fountain, and introduces him to colorful modern art via a book from the library, sparking in him an interest in painting. Johnson and Bud Parker's mother, Betty, fall in love, causing her to leave home, throwing George Parker, Bud and Mary Sue's father, into complete confusion. The only people who remain unchanged are the town fathers, led by the Mayor, Big Bob (J.T. Walsh), who sees the changes as eating away at the moral values of Pleasantville. They resolve to do something about their increasingly independent wives and the rebellious teenagers.

As the townsfolk slowly becomes more colorful and passionate, they also discover more unsavory aspects of 20th century human culture, such as racial segregation, expressing itself as a ban in some public venues on "colored" people. Eventually a riot is touched off by a nude painting of Betty on the window of Mr. Johnson's soda fountain. The soda fountain is destroyed, piles of books are burned, and anyone who is "colored" is harassed in the streets. As a reaction, the town fathers announce a list of rules preventing people from visiting the library, playing loud music, or using paint colors other than black, white or gray. In protest, David and Mr. Johnson paint a colorful mural on a brick wall, depicting things relevant to the changes in their world, but are arrested. Brought to trial in front of the entire town, David and Mr. Johnson defend their actions, eventually arousing enough anger and indignation in Big Bob that the Mayor himself becomes colored as well.

With this, the entire town becomes colored, and the people of Pleasantville are finally introduced to the rest of the world. Televisions at the repair shop now display full-colored images of various scenic vistas around the world; Main Street, which had previously been a circuit looping back on itself, now leads away to other streets, and ultimately to other towns and cities as well.

Having seen Pleasantville changed irrevocably for the better, Jennifer chooses to stay behind in the alternate world for a while to finish her education, but David returns to the real world using the remote control.