Director: Gary Ross

I read about this film on a website and the description given was a little bit strange; but being horrendously bored and sort of intrigued, I proceeded to watch it anyway and let me say I LOVED IT! Reese Witherspoon (who is the typical blonde teenager) and her bro, Tobey Maguire (The typical nerd) get sucked into a 1950’s TV programme called Pleasantville, and as the name suggests, everything is perfect. Or so it seems. As soon as the siblings arrive, things begin to change, things aren’t as perfect as they once were and suddenly this previously black and white world (both literally and metaphorically) begins to change into colour.

At first this film feels like a funny teen movie, but as it progresses, it gets deep. Once the characters in the show start turning from black and white into colour, the still black and white members begin to shun and create prejudice against the ‘colours’ as they are known. Sound familiar? You could link it to a lot of different topics; racial prejudice, anti-Semitism etc. and suddenly this ‘teen’ movie isn’t just for teens anymore. Yet what I find really interesting is that the makers of the film managed to introduce these huge topics, but neither the quality nor the mood of the film suffered, it didn’t depress me to the point of feeling like my whole world had crumbled (a similar feeling to when Mufasa dies in the Lion King) and it still kept me hooked to the storyline, which I imagine is very hard to do as film makers.

Having watched, and loved this film I will give it an 8/10 for making me think about the way society treats those deemed ‘different’, but by doing it in a way where I didn’t feel bombarded with information. I’d recommend this to anyone, adults too because I feel that, although an underrated film it’s definitely worth a watch.