PLEASANTVILLE  (1998)  ***

Reviewed 10/21/98

I was quite surprised by Pleasantville's political daring, repudiating the 1950s fantasies of today's conservatives along with the simplicity of "family values" ideology. In its place, it implicitly espouses the 1960s' concept of free love (with its vague advocating of an adulterous affair) and explicitly civil rights and women's liberation. However, while rejecting some conservative fantasies, the film indulges in other liberal ones, specifically upper-middle class idealism of classic art to transform the individual. Don't get me wrong, Picasso and Monet, Twain and Salenger have their power, but they don't work the way writer-director Gary Ross fancies. Also, odd ideological contradictions are apparent in the film, none more strange than the "recuperation" of the Reese Whitherspoon character, who is forced into a most unliberating virgin-whore dichotomy. Ultimately, Ross's sensibilities toward a bourgeois decency limits how far the film can go, but Pleasantville is still one of the more interesting movies of the year.