Twilight Universe

Hi, my name is Gregory, and I’m a romantic at heart.

I really am. A cynical, sarcastic, bitter romantic, but a romantic nonetheless. One of the things that I celebrate most about us as people is our ability to express and communicate emotion. I will never be tired of honest, undiluted, pure emotion. If there is such a thing as a human spirit, I think that is its primary quality.

Pleasantville is a film about honest expression, that questioning yearning for experience, and the ability to communicate that experience.

From that fundamental idea Pleasantville (literally) paints a canvas full of human emotion and experience. It crams in a staggering ammount of commentary, from the political, to the social, to the simple aspects of people human.

You can tell I like it can’t you?

Seriously though, Pleasantville is right up there in my all time favourite movies. I don’t like ranking favourites, but if I had to it certainly would be in my top 10, maybe even top 5, and I’ll tell you one reason why: there is not a single thing wrong with this movie.

Now I’m not saying everyone will like it. Tastes vary. What I am saying though is that, not accounting for taste, Pleasantville is the kind of flawlessly crafted piece of filmmaking that you get once or twice a generation.

I’m saying that as a cynic, a nit-picker, and a general over-analyser of movies. There is virtually no movie, no matter how much I enjoyed it, that I can’t find a minor (or in some cases major) flaw in. These don’t make me enjoy it less, it’s just I’m very exacting of my movies. I have extremely high standards, but a movie doesn’t have to meet those standards for me to enjoy it.

Hell, I managed to enjoy the Doom movie, and that takes talent. From Ju-On to Underworld, from Back To The Future to The Evil Dead, I have a broad selection of films that I enjoy to watch… and they are of varying quality.

Pleasantville however has nothing I can fault it with. It sets out its standards very early on - set in a world of the 1950’s American TV show. A world where people can have children, but sleep in seperate beds and haven’t heard of sex. Where the most exciting thing to happen is a neighbour getting a new car. Where everybody knows your name. Comfortable, reassuring, never-changing, pleasant.

And at first glance, that world is attractive. It’s certainly safe, the fireman don’t even know what I fire is - their biggest emergency is a cat stuck up a tree - and crime doesn’t exist. The premise harks back to a time where everything was nice and safe and secure. A time that never really existed, least of all in America. But somewhere inside everyone wants that for themselves at some point in their lives, and that’s one of the many points the movie makes: Reality and our desires often clash.

I say one of many points, and I mean it. Pleasantville has among it’s themes: emergance of sexuality, racism, fear of change, good people doing bad things, change being scary, change being good, change being bad, the ability to be more than people think of you, and that is just oiff the top of my head.. the list goes on.

Concidering the subject matter, this movie could have gone very, very, wrong - Blast From The Past is an example of how a similar idea can be developed badly- but amazingly it doesn’t.

The cinematography is spot on. The black and white 1950’s TV atmosphere being captured perfectly. Shot selection, framing, the slightly low contrast black and white style - all of it looks and feels like it’s just come out of a TV show. Similarly the colour used in the film is of the delicious Technicolor variety that simply pops of the screen. When one character says “It was Green, not just green but green, real green“, you know exactly what they mean.

The art direction matches the cinematography exquisitely as well, with the white picket fences and characters feeling real, and not just pale, poorly drawn, homages.

Script wise the character are well rounded, and each has their own distinct flavour, you really end up caring about them. The dialogue is natural, and the themes are written in a reasonably subtle way. Yes it’s sentimental, but in fact that is one of its strengths: it wears its heart honestly and openly on its sleeve. The progression of the themes and characters is never forced, and never feels artificial - you can sympathise with both sides, even if you don’t agree with one of them.

Having a great script means that the actors really could flex their muscles. This isn’t heavy material, it’s light nature belies the subtlety of the writing, but it could have been killed by over the top performances. The ever-dependable William H. Macy (when is that man going to get the recognition he deserves?) and an underrated Joan Allen as George & Betty Parker are the movies heart, whereas Jeff Daniels, as the adorably simple store owner Mr. Johnson, could be considered the soul. The late J.T. Walsh rounds off the supporting cast with a predictable, but well performed, turn as the towns gregarious major. Tobey Maguire puts in probably his best performance to date, and Reese Witherspoon is amazingly not annoying (most of the time anyway, and when she is it’s more in character).

This is a film I will never get tired of, and will always be a classic to me.

By the end of the film we have found out, like the main characters, that while we way yearn for the stability and familiarity of the 1950’s TV world that Pleasantville starts as, what makes us human is our flaws, our passions, our feelings. The can be terrible, and they can be wonderful, but to deny that we have them is the greatest folly we can make.I can’t think of a better message than that.