The story is fairly simple.  Two teenagers, one, an obvious nerd, seeking acceptance, another, also seeking acceptance, but by less than moral means. They are living in a world not too uncommon to teens today.  The pressure of a broken household, peers and school. Plus while you're at it, throw in all of society's problems of AIDS, pollution, and civil and political unrest, and it is no wonder that some people seek to escape to the peace and serenity of television, and now, even the Internet.   David escapes to the world of the 1950s TV series Pleasantville, where he finally has the perfect family life, he lives his life for this show, and obviously, in some way, wishes he were there.   The grass is always greener concept intensified greatly here.  His fraternal twin sister Jennifer decides to gain her popularity by sleeping and associating with the right people.  Each of these viewpoints exists in a world where if we don't like our life around us, we seek out what looks best from afar.

Through a set of interesting circumstances, the two are pulled into Pleasantville, a town that could make June Cleaver sick with sweetness.   The husband works, the wife stays home, the kids go to school, play sports, get good grades, perfection right?   Everyone has settled into a routine, it has been, it always will be, because change is bad.  Why rock the boat when it's sailing along so smoothly.  The entire town, and its citizens reside in a zombified state of cruise control. It moves along with an innocent, yet ignorant fluidity, until the appearance of David and Jennifer (now known as Bud and Mary Sue).   More circumstances, revelations and events, lead to changes, subtle at first, but growing slowly, and the townspeople become torn.  Do we go back to how things used to be, and resist the foreign ideas, or should we progress forward, grow, expand our horizons, risking the unknown, but with potentially beneficial circumstances?   Herein lies the movie's basic groundwork, an arduous task for a first time director.

The plot of the movie basically consists of situations, and gradual discoveries.   The situations build and brew slowly, reaching a crescendo like a symphony.  There is a point, about 2/3 of the way through, when I was kind of ho-humming along about the pacing, when the crescendo reached it's peak, and kicked in, and all of sudden, the slow, methodical, gentle pacing made sense.  The movie takes an unexpected turn, a serious social commentary that I did not expect. From this point on, I was hooked.   

When it comes to ensemble casts such as this one, I believe that a smart script, competent director, or just one good performance can inspire the rest of the cast to heights previously not attained.  This is the case here.  All of the performances are strong, consistent and powerful.  Each character knows there place, does there job, and moves along, helping the story to flow smoothly, but not hamming, or trying to anymore than need be done.  Maguire plays the naive, excitable hero, with an innocent jubilance, Witherspoon is tartish joy, as her heart of gold truly comes out, and she proves that she can play it sweet, and play it well. Daniels has a charming, curious aloofness, Macy plays his Fargo car salesman, before the evils of greed corrupted him (he also utters the movies most memorable line in my eyes, a classic scene in the rain, and the words "Where's My Dinner).  If any performances here stand out slightly, they come from, in his final performance, the great character actor JT Walsh, who proves, yet again, what a great loss he was. He was indeed one of Hollywood's great nameless wonders.    He took any character, (the smarmier, the better) and turn them into his own.   As the resistantly naysaying mayor, he brings a stubborn resistance, reminiscent of small Southern towns during the 50s (a reference, you'll understand after you see this film), Walsh gives a fitting swan song.  Also standing out is Joan Allen, (even though she's twice Oscar nominated, a lot of people don't know her, they should).  As the put-upon wife of Macy, she seems to benefit the most from the eye-openings, and Allen reflects this, with a powerful confidence, and curious charm.