Pleasantville [1998] Movie Reviews on CinemaClock

This movie is one of the most mind-boggling I've ever seen. More than a year after I've seen it for the first time, it is still opening my eyes, opening them so wide that I get sleepless when thinking about it at night. For this movie about the fate of humanity. This movie is about why it is better to suffer here on earth than any kind of beatitude in a blissful paradise. This movie is about the inevitability and the bliss of change, it just shouts CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! At you, and the backwards message of the movie is that if you don't, then you'll fade to grey. This movie shows you why civilizations clinging to the past are bound to disappear like dinosaurs because you just cannot prevent change, that children will be thinking differently than parents because this is the way humanity progresses, and that the one motor for change - for putting color in our world - is the human mind and its craving for discovery. Gary Ross, you're a genius.

Although on the surface this movie seems to be about paying homage to 50's television and 50's 'values', there is IMO a deeper message: To feel truly alive you have to get out of your rut, expand your horizons, take a few chances with life. Change is not necessarily something to fear but something to embrace. The deinzens of Pleasantville are in the ultimate rut. Doomed to live in rerun hell, they repeat their daily lives episode by episode. They know nothing of either the universe or of life outside of their script. The world is a closed loop where the end of Main Street is also the beginning of Main Street. When two 90's kids are thrown into this pleasant little universe, all hell breaks loose. The clash of modern vs. 50's family values inevitably takes its toll. Little by little though, Pleasantvillians begin to discover that there's a whole new world outside of their script. When someone finally manages to break free of their routine, they change from black-and-white characters to color. (Interesting aside: At one point in the movie, the town's stores put up signs 'No Coloreds' -- an obvious jab at prevalent racist attitudes of the fifties.) While some may think that sex seems to be the trigger for this color change, I would disagree. For a lot of these people (who have never even heard of sex let alone experience it) sex is certainly what finally makes them sufficiently self-aware to break out of their rut and finally come alive. But, I think, it is the coming alive part that turns them into 'colorful' charaters. For many, sex is all that's necessary for this to happen. For others, it's discovering a hidden talent, or uncovering an interest in knowledge, or (as in our protagonist's case) finding a sense of self worth. This movie is the ultimate metaphor for most of our lives. We get stuck in our daily routines and forget what it is to feel vibrantly, colourfully alive. Comfortable in this routine, we stop taking chances and look at change with a bit of fear and suspicion. We develop a constricted view of life where we tend to see things in shades of gray rather than the rich tapestry of colour that life can offer. I like the way the movie ends; the main characters' fates are left completely undetermined. In fact, a few of them sit around at the end of the movie asking themselves what will happen next. With a smile they all agree that they don't know. And that's the beauty (maybe even the purpose) of real life. We just don't know. If there's a message in this movie, it's this: Take a chance once in a while, get out of your rut and don't be afraid of change. Hey, it might even put some color in your cheeks.