Pleasantville (1998)

Wow, this is an old movie - so old that the back of the DVD case lists the date in roman numerals, which took me just a couple of seconds to translate. What a great skill to have. 1998 you say? Why that's MCMXCVIII. (And the crowd goes wild...various pieces of women's underwear rain down upon the stage)
This was a movie I was never going to watch. It looked cheesey, and seeing that it was from the director of Big and Dave didn't help it. But, then I watched the Hunger Games and more importantly the DVD extras and liked how Gary Ross presented himself. And hey, who doesn't love Peter Parker and June Carter Cash?
I'm glad that I watched Pleasantville. Would it be too cheeky to say it was a pleasant movie? Okay, maybe a little. It was a nice story about normal kids thrust into a non-normal situation, and their coming of age. Plus, you gotta love any story where the fry cook discovers that his true love is as a painter and that his other true love is the married mother of his only employee.
Joan Allen is outstanding in this film, as is Jeff Daniels. Everyone else is good, but not really noteworthy, which considering the names of some of these heavy-hitters is a bit surprising. I have to think that if William H. Macy were given just a little more to work with that his character would have shined the whole way through, and not just in the end. Oh, there is one other name that is worth mentioning - Don Knotts. He played the t.v. repairman with a mix of devil and angel and child that was brilliant. I think it's easy to sell him short based on his career, but I doubt that he really has been given many chances to play anything more than the comic relief, which is too bad - he was conveying more with a look than any of the younger actors.
I wonder if Mr. Knotts is still alive? I had no idea how old this film was until after watching it, so when he first came on screen, my reaction was, "Hey! It's Don Freaki' Knotts! I didn't know he was still alive..." And then I enjoy the film and in order to write this check out the back of the case and see that it was released in MCMXCVIII, I mean 1998 (sorry), and now I feel a bit sad because he might not be still alive and for some reason that really bums me out. Okay Google, time to break it to me...

Pleasantville on IMDb