Yesterday, there was a discussion about films that people just
did not like. Rask mentioned "American Beauty" (a film
I did not like, but was able to enjoy because of Kevin Spacey's
performance). Jenerator brought up one that fit the category for
me -- "Leaving Las Vegas."
I saw another one last night - "Pleasantville" - the
story of modern (and, naturally, fatherless) children (Tobey
Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) transported into the world of a 50s
television show as the Bud and Kitten children of a "Father
Knows Best" couple (Joan Allen and William H. Macy), where,
until their arrival, everything was black and white, orderly, and
predictable. Long story short, Maguire says "aw shucks"
a lot and introduces the black-and-white characters to the
wonders of a life outside Pleasantville, Witherspoon teaches
Allen how to masturbate and also beds the high school basketball
star, and soon enough, everyone is turning up colored.
The picture is deathly slow and overly impressed by its own
technological achievement (basically, the one-trick pony of color
images side-by-side with black-and-white images). It is also
leaden with contrived poignancy, as the splendor of a colorless
world made vibrant is hammered into your skull time and time and
time again.
What propelled it into a particularly unpleasant experience
was the direction taken by writer and director Gary Ross. He left
no cliche unutilized. When the "coloreds" sprout up,
the town reacts with standard "Triumph of the Will" cum
Selma 1963 attitudes. Ross employs stilted cameras angles to make
the threatened citizenry (their wives, you see, do not have
dinner on the table and something must be done) more evil. The
town mayor (J.T. Walsh) is one angry white man, and he is framed
from the ground up, evoking a melange of Hotler, Mussolini and
Wallace. The mob scenes - they invariably congregate outside soda
shop owner Jeff Daniels' establishment, because now that he is
colored, and he's getting laid, he feels free to paint nude
pictures of Allen on his store window - are shot close quarter to
resemble angry Southern mobs as seen on newsreel footage from the
60s.
Get it. This is just like that civil rights problem we had
awhile back. And darnit all, prejudice is just plain bad, in the
U.S. of A. or in Pleasantville.
Hey. How about that.
All of this makes Maguire wise and insufferable. He spends the
film teaching the black-and-whites that they have colored in them.
He then goes back to the future and has kind and supportive words
for his mother, who is unhappy and neglectful in our soulless,
modern times.
The film was also grossly inconsistent. On the one hand, the
innocent denizens of Pleasantville are incapable of understanding
rain (they huddle under cover in fear) or fire (the fire
department has only rescued cats from trees), and if they are
punched, they do not know what to do, presumably because they
have never seen violence. Yet, when the coloreds appear, to suit
Ross' college-level social statement, the black-and-whites take
to book-burning (yes, of course, there is a book burning),
vandalism, and menacing the coloreds like ducks to water.
And what do they use to burn the books? Fire. And what did the
fire department do when they came upon their first fire (which
looked an awful like a burning bush)? They were bewildered
because there was no cat around.
Telling stuff.
That said, it features the finest performance from Don Knotts
since his strong work in "Three's Company"
And speaking of Kristin Scott Thomas, I saw "Up at the
Villa" last night. A Somerset Maugham adapdation by Philip
Haas it suggests a kinder, gentler "The Letter"
floating in an atmosphere out of "Tea With Mussolini."
Thomas is a well-heeled but penniless British widow living in
Italy. James Fox, an ageing-but-dashing diplomat, proposes
marriage. She asks him to let her "think it over" as
he's about to take a brief trip. While he's away he's gets into
Major Trouble with Jeremy Davies (as an Austrian refugee), and
Sean Penn (as an American rotter) comes to the rescue -- only to
put himself in peril. Anne Bancroft does a great turn as a Grand
Dame.
Penn's actually tolerable in this one.
Altogether a solid entertainment.
