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20th Century Flicks

Pleasantville

Dir Gary Ross, 1998, USA, 124 mins, 35mm, Cert: 12

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Thu 11 October 2018 // 20:00

Tickets: £5 (full) / £4 (concession)

Chalk-and-cheese teenage siblings Jennifer and David (Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire) receive a visit from a mysterious television repairman who leaves the pair with a remote control with the power to transport them into Pleasantville, an all-too wholesome black-and-white 1950s family sitcom. Once there, the pair’s '90s sensibilities begin to rub up against those of the more socially-restrictive times, and the (literal) colour which they begin to help seep into this supposed idyll comes to be seen as a threat to the morally complacent ways of life of its residents. A delightfully mischievous comedy satire which nods to both The Wizard of Oz and A Matter of Life and Death, and which perhaps feels more relevant to the political climate of today than that of the time of its release some twenty years ago.