Pleasantville is more than just a small-town piece of Americana trapped in a time warp that is fixated on the conservatively clean-cut 1950's, it is a small fictional town that finds itself struggling with social issues that are all too real and timeless for those who continue to struggle with their divisive influences. Racism, bigotry, artistic and intellectual censorship, conformity without question or debate, non-conformity with purpose and hope, and the struggle for individuality are all beautifully and sensitively illustrated though filmic metaphors and touching performances in this family film. Whether you are one who has always found comfort and security conforming to the assertive voices and visions of others or know the personal struggle of leaving comfort to secure and assert your own voice and vision in a world that doesn't always agree, this is a poignant film that is highly capable of striking a chord in the hearts of us all.

Greast film - a modern-day Morality Play (read Genesis first to fully appreciate it). Also beautiful cinematic techniques.

Pleasantville starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon is a good comedy/drama but I was expecting so much more. The two leads are so talented and Joan Allen and Jeff Daniels bring realism to their roles. The problem I have with this film is the slow pace, it feels too long and dragged out and the black and white is kind of distracting when color is introduced halfway into the film. Interesting flick but poorly excuated.

Pleasantville is an underappreciated movie full of interesting, deep concepts hidden fairly well with subtle acting and introspective dialogue, and with not-so-subtle visual images. In fact, the visual aspects of this movie, the blending of color with black-and-white, are incredible at times. Seeing a black-and-white tree burst into flames is quite beautiful. Seeing an entire town visually transform from stale black-and-white to vivid color is technically stunning.

David (Tobey McGuire) is a modern, nerdy teenager who follows a `50s-esque show "Pleasanville", a sitcom of sorts with the shucks and darns expected during the nicest dinner at Mayberry. It's a `50s utopia, where the men wear suits, work 9-to-5, and the women have dinner ready and ironing done promptly. All of that changes when a TV repairman (Don Knotts) gives David a fanciful TV-remote that transports him and his sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) into the TV show.

As a big fan of the show, David - who is now Bud - knows everything about the perfectly balanced town. He believes in the town, and the harmonious nature with which everything works. He knows the town is perfect, and the basketball team has never missed a shot (possibly the funniest part of the movie - SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!) Jennifer - who is now Mary Sue - on the other hand, is a Pleasantville neophyte and none too happy about the step back in time. In no time at all, Mary Sue has her legs wrapped around the town basketball stud Skip (Paul Walker) at Lover's Lane where she teaches him to double-dribble. With Pandora's Box opened, the black-and-white town begins to show incredible changes: vivid colors appear out of nowhere. With color representing change and maybe even improvement, it's up to Bud to not only maintain the status quo, but also to explain the rapid changes to the townsfolk as he tries to find a way home amidst the chaos.

I could have done without the over-the-top racial connotation, with the town beginning a counter-rebellion against the "coloreds", and the infidelity angle was contradictory to the movie's actual message, but it's easily ignorable because of the superb acting and ground-breaking cinematography. Great movie.

I can't believe I missed this classic.

Turning the overused and predictable time-travel concept on its head, Pleasantville aims extremely high, posing the mother of all existential questions - would we do it the same way if given a chance to re-write our own history? With the exception of some very leaden sixties revisionism, the answer is ingenious and thought provoking.

Living in the highly sexualized, single-parented miasma of pre-Y2K suburbia, teenagers David and Jennifer Wagner (Tobey Maguire & Reese Witherspoon) find themselves transported into a 1950's sitcom called Pleasantville that quickly becomes their black and white purgatory of Eisenhower-era rectitude.

The re-creation of Pleasantville in its original, sinless state is pitch perfect. Breakfast consists of waffles, pancakes and ham steaks slathered in butter and piled sky high with trans-fat be damned glee. The High School experience is completely asexual with the most pressing academic and social concerns being term papers mining the origins of the local fire house and who is getting "pinned" at the big dance. To complete the post card, the local barber dispenses platitudes, the basketball team always wins and the aforementioned firefighters do nothing but rescue cats in trees - all locked in a serene, soulless contentment.

In the middle of this sit-com stereotype come David and Jennifer (now Bud and Mary Sue) who in addition to finding a way out, have to cope with their on-screen parents, George and Betty (great performances by William H. Macy and Joan Allen) and their own personal awakening as they live within the suffocating sterility of their all-to-real, scripted surroundings.

Fed up with the cynicism of his life in the 1990s, Bud's original thought is to completely embrace the simplicity of the town and adapt his behavior to the morality and expecations as they currently exist. As a counterpoint, Mary Sue's vision is to bring the "enlightenment" of modern vice to Pleasantville at every opportunity - both siblings causing objects and characters to spontaneously transition from black and white to color as the revelations about the nature of themselves and their fictional society "corrupts" their friends and neighbors.

Despite their best (or worst intentions) the entire moral and social fabric of the town very quickly unravels creating "white" versus "colored" anarchy that in very short order breeds a backlash of knee-jerk censorship, town-hall mobs, blacklisting, random book-burnings, adultery, attempted rape and just for good measure, the Suffragetting of "traditional" gender roles. The clear, underlying message being that whatever the fall-out or unintended consequences, Man's pursuit of knowledge should be secular, unerring and absolute - very directly taking to task what they perceive as the soft, conformist, underbelly of most organized religions.

For both good and bad, Pleasantville is the Book of Genesis as it might be told by Norman Lear or Bill Maher - Enlightement is both vaccine and contagion - all Nirvana is essentially a conservative falsehood with Original Sin denoting the rise of Man rather than his fall.

A very heady chaser to wash down your multiplex nachos - and the perfect date movie - if you happen to be dating Alanis Morissette.

That being said, my only substantial criticism of the film, as a film, is that the avalanche of dysfunction that dominates the second half seemed far too neat and contrived in the service of the film's glaring progressive themes - and came very close to overwhelming the best efforts of a stellar, ensemble cast. However, even against this backdrop (and a few gaping plot holes) Pleasantville remains a very powerful, poignent and beautiful film especially given the bold aspirations of the premise.

As for the technicals, Pleasantville showcases some extraordinary sfx and cinematography, a brilliant score by Randy Newman and the return of the late, great Don Knotts to theatrical filmaking in a surprisingly robust role - nothing wrong with that.

While I am not sure if I would enjoy living in any version of Pleasantville - the town certainly makes a "swell" day trip - take it!