Pleasantville (1998)

★★★★1/2

When a brother and sister from the 90’s are zapped into a 1950’s sitcom by a mysterious remote, they soon find themselves struggling to adapt to the 50’s ideology and morals. It doesn’t take long before the sister, Jennifer, disobeys her brother, David, and brings 90’s culture to this complacent black and white world. Before long, the citizens of Pleasantville begin seeing things in a while new color and this angers those who want to keep their strict morals and later leads to Pleasantville becoming not so pleasant. At its heart, this is a truly magical film that explores people’s fear and how we’ll do anything to preserve our innocents. Great special effects and wonderful art direction highlight this film as being something other than a “fish out of the water” story. It has heart, humor and morals.