Stylistic Analysis Of The Movie Pleasantville

David and Jennifer are living in the age of negativity. The environment is going to hell, unemployment is going to rise, life just sucks in general. This doesn’t bother Jennifer, but David wishes his life was more like his favorite 50′s TV show, Pleasantville. He’s seen every episode to the point of memorization; so when a mysterious TV repairman gives him a remote that transports him and his sister, Jennifer, into the show; he’s thrilled, but she is not. David (now Bud) tries to get Jennifer (now Mary Sue) to play the role she’s been given in the show, and follow the plot, but she decides to change things up. Now, her modern influence starts changing the way Pleasantville citizens think, as well as changing the landscape from black and white to technicolor.
The most important part of this movie is the eponymous setting. “No one is homeless in Pleasantville. It’s just not what it’s like.” Pleasantville is perfect. Well, not perfect, it’s “swell”. The temperature is always sunny and cool, the residents are content; hell, the school basketball team doesn’t even miss a single basket. But no one has ever heard of the concept of
I remember not liking V for Vendetta for having such a clean, simplistic view of a political revolution, so shouldn’t I have a problem with Pleasantville’s simplistic social revolution? Not really. This movie isn’t trying to go for realism or trying to tackle its themes and allegories seriously. Yes, it can get serious, and some scenes feel too real for comfort (’No Colored Allowed’ signs and sexual harassment come to mind) but all in all, this movie is just a nice and simple feel-good movie. It’s a sweet fantasy, and it’s not marketing itself as anything but. We’re in TVLand, where problems are solved in half an hour and everyone is nice and swell. It gives us one outdated ideal of life, and it shows us the conflict that arises as we try to change and evolve and form a new ideal of