Suppose you suddenly found yourself trapped in the old television show "Father Knows Best." The world is black and white and life is perfect. The basketball team never loses, Mommy dearest cooks four course breakfasts, and it never rains. Perfect right? Unless, of course, you refuse to follow the script. Once you deviate from the script, everything starts to fall apart.
This is the clever and very effective premise of Pleasantville. David and Jennifer are brother and sister in a very imperfect 90's family. In a fight over the television remote control, they are transported into the television show Pleasantville. David is the reigning Pleasantville trivia champ and a devout fan. He can quote scripts word for word. (Danger, danger Will Robinson! I can quote Monty Python scripts until my fiance kicks me under the table. In the shins. Hard.) Jennifer, however, thinks it is stupid and corny. Once it is clear what has happened (even if the Why? is as yet unresolved) David is thrilled and Jennifer is outraged. David finally has the nuclear family he has always wanted. Jennifer is aghast at her pasty complexion. While David slowly recognizes which episode they have been trapped in, Jennifer charges off on her own, refusing to follow the script.
The nice, bland, white-bread world can't handle the variety. When Jennifer seduces the high school hunk, the "scripts" fall apart. Couples who previously were contemplating holding hands are suddenly discovering the Kama Sutra in the back seat on Lover's Lane. Suddenly the basketball players can't make a shot. They actually lose a game and the entire town is quietly nonplussed. The men in the barber shop suddenly understand the phrase "You can't win them all." More importantly, the world starts to turn into a color world. At first it is just a patch of color here and there. A rose, an umbrella, a young girl's tongue. As the people in Pleasantville start to explore possibilities their world leaves the old black and white behind.
The change from black and white to color is handled very deftly and it serves a number of functions. First, it provides a visible symbol of the sense of freedom and possibility that gradually seep into Pleasantville. Second, it serves to give rise to an exploration of prejudice (it gives rise to a very clever visual pun on "colored"). The gradual transformation to color is quite effective. Although we have seen the same technique in isolated scenes or ads, the effects here really serve the story well.
If this movie were just one clever idea, it would be like a Saturday Night Live skit-a one liner dragged out for twelve (or in this case ninety) minutes. But writer/director Gary Ross has more up his sleeve than just a clever idea. He has created a charming and warmly felt movie. We are given two wonderful stories that draw the plot out in fine detail.
First, David and Jennifer's parents start to have a few problems. Betty (played by Joan Allen) turns "colored" as she explores an art book with soda shop owner Mr. Johnson (Jeff Daniels). Johnson has always loved painting his windows for the holidays. With the coming of color, he is given an art history book that brings his artistic soul from a banked ember to a full blaze. Betty is drawn in, and she poses for an expressionist nude in the soda shop window. Trapped in Pleasantville's first thunderstorm, she spends the night with Mr. Johnson. Meanwhile, her husband George arrives home, puts up his hat, and cries out "Honey, I'm home!" Betty is nowhere to be found, dinner is not on the table or in the oven. When she does turn up she is in full color. George tries to reassure her that the color will go away. "But I don't want it to go away!" she replies. The breach is irresolvable, and she leaves him for Mr. Johnson. (Later, when George visits David in jail, he brings a bottle of martini olives, the only food in the house he can find.) It's a touching scene, well rendered.
The later exploration of prejudice/racism arises very believably. Had it been handled poorly, it would have felt gratuitous or merely tacked on. But here we see its source. As life slips from its comfortable, reassuring ruts, some are not happy with the change. They don't like all the color, changing roles, new music and upheaval. They are not evil, just weak, frightened, and unequipped to cope with the new world. At first, they seek some sort of compromise. They decree a new "code of conduct" legislating music, allowable colors, etc. Of course, it is perfectly acceptable if you want to remain in the rut. For many of the liberated coloreds it is just another form of surrender. As the "coloreds" are persecuted by the "black-and-whites" a huge wall of graffiti becomes a form of protest, leading to a courtroom showdown.
This is quite a tribute to the power of the individual and the importance of freedom. We have seen the police state held up as the opposite of freedom, and we are correctly frightened of it. But this movie shows us an altogether more insidious version of such repression. Repression does not automatically mean nasty, evil, or cruel. It can be pleasant, palatable, and prosperous. This is the kind of prejudice that everyone faces in every day life. And the sources of prejudice and control are not just radicals. They are our own family, our friends, our coworkers. Their expectations and need to pigeon hole us have a subtle, cumulative force that takes strength and courage to oppose. And it shows how, in many ways, it takes very little to oppose those forces.
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