Pleasantville

365 Films

Entry #115

Pleasantville (1998)

Directed by Gary Ross

Steven Soderbergh may not have directed Pleasantville, although he is credited as a producer, it still contains many of the exact same themes that have fascinated him over the years.  It’s not difficult to understand why he took a liking to this particular project.  The idea of competing realities coupled with a subversive take on the American dream seem like they could have come directly from the Soderbergh dream factory,  the fable-like qualities of the film are entirely within the wheelhouse of writer-director Gary Ross.  Coming off writing the screenplays for the two populist fantasies Big and Dave, Pleasantville is a fairly remarkable feature for a first time director.  Aside from the fact that it is almost entirely composed of visual FX shots (the color intrusion into the black and white world of Pleasantville remains a marvel to this day), the juggling act the film has to take on should have flat-out sunken even the cockiest of directorial egos.  Said juggling act involves transitioning from a fish out of water sit-com premise to an inquisitive look into the pervasive influence of media into our American concepts of happiness.  Ross is aided heavily in this by a pretty mighty group of performers, hell, he even found the one role that Paul Walker couldn’t screw up.  The heart of the film, to me, remains the Joan Allen-William H. Macy-Jeff Daniels triangle and re-visiting the film, I truly believe that these performances help sell a lot of Ross’ effective (albeit somewhat hokey) satirical points with genuine and rich emotion.  The late 90’s and early Aught’s were a proverbial breeding ground for a slew of films warning us about the dangers of living within the 24 hour media cycle.  Obviously we’ve heeded all of those warnings and are completely free from it in today’s modern age, I guess it was just a lot of pre-millennial freaking out.  Pleasantville stands apart in its capacity to enchant and enrapture, if only all bitter pills went down this easily.