With its "teens-sucked-into-a-'50s-sitcom" premise, Pleasantville, starts out looking like it's going to be a throwaway satire of old TV shows. That it achieves much more is a pleasant surprise.

As the movie opens, we quickly meet David (Tobey Maguire), a high school nerd who's addicted to "Pleasantville" an old black & white, "Ozzie and Harriet"-style sitcom that plays endlessly on a "Nick at Nite"-type cable channel. But David doesn't just appreciate the show for its kitschiness. He's drawn to the concept of idyllic family life, which stands in such sharp contrast to his own reality of divorced parents and a twin sister, Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon), who's the school slut. One night, David's obsession over the show results in a fight with Jen over the remote, which gets broken in the tussle. Fortunately, none other than Don Knotts shows up as a mysterious TV repair man. He supplies the kids with a new remote, one that provides a whole new meaning to the term "channel surfing." They touch the thing and the next thing they know, they're beamed right into an episode of "Pleasantville", suddenly cast as the show's teen sibling stars.

The pair's adjustment to the so-perfect-it's-spooky world of the show provides plenty of comic material. In "Pleasantville", it never rains, basketball players never miss a basket and nothing burns (firemen only exist to rescue cats from trees). And of course, there's no color.

But when the show's storyline calls for Jen to go with a date to "Lover's Lane," she ends-up taking things way beyond what the script of a '50s sitcom would call for. She introduces the world of "Pleasantville" to sex and inadvertently sparks a movement that turns the tiny TV universe upside down. Soon, flowers begin to be seen in color. As the town's inhabitants are slowly awakened to "the birds and the bees" and life's other passions, color begins to spread everywhere -- to cars, even to people's faces. The sitcom's stock hamburger cook (the always superb Jeff Daniels) takes and interest in painting. Words start appearing in the library's books and the town begins to discover the world of literature. With the good, also comes the bad. The changes open the door for fear, intolerance and violence to enter Pleasantville -- soon the "coloreds" are segregated. As the town tries to cope after having its eyes opened, the movie evolves into a parable for the cultural turmoil of the 1960s.

Writer, director Gary Ross, who wrote the Capra-esque political comedy Dave, uses color as a metaphor for freedom of ideas and the energy of life. "Colorization," once a gimmick used by Ted Turner, is here used as a filmmaking tool. It's a concept Steven Spielberg experimented with in Schindler's List, but here, Ross uses it to surprisingly powerful effect. The film's blending of color and black & white in the same frame is more extraordinary than you'd think. The movie's cinematography definitely deserves strong consideration when Oscar time comes around.

Ross has also lined-up a near-perfect cast. William H. Macy and Joan Allen fit the mold precisely as seemingly-plastic 50s TV parents. Maguire and Witherspoon are both first rate and bring depth to characters that could have been cliched. And the late J.T. Walsh, as the town's mayor, gives one last great performance in what would turn out to be his final role.

Pleasantville tries to shatter the myth that culture of the 1950s was ideal. The film warns that any effort to return to that more "simple time" opens the door for the evils of oppression and the boredom of conformity. It also assures us that no matter how difficult our lives may be, a perfect world would be unlivable. It's a nice thought, anyway.

Copyright 1998