Box office
Pleasantville earned $8.9 million during its opening weekend. It would ultimately earn a total of $40.8 million against a $60 million budget making it a box office flop, despite the critical success.[13]
Critical reception
Pleasantville received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 86% rating from 97 reviews, an average rating of 7.7/10, with the critical consensus: "Filled with lighthearted humor, timely social commentary, and dazzling visuals, Pleasantville is an artful blend of subversive satire and well-executed Hollywood formula."[14] Metacritic assigned a score of 71 based on 32 reviews.[15]
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four, calling it "one of the best and most original films of the year".[16] Janet Maslin wrote that its "ingenious fantasy" has "seriously belabored its once-gentle metaphor and light comic spirit".[17] Peter M. Nichols, judging the film for its child-viewing worthiness, jokingly wrote in The New York Times that the town of Pleasantville "makes Father Knows Best look like Dallas".[18] Joe Leydon of Variety called it "a provocative, complex and surprisingly anti-nostalgic parable wrapped in the beguiling guise of a commercial high-concept comedy". He commented that some storytelling problems emerge late in the film, but wrote that "Ross is to be commended for refusing to take the easy way out".[19]
Entertainment Weekly wrote a mixed review: "Pleasantville is ultramodern and beautiful. But technical elegance and fine performances mask the shallowness of a story as simpleminded as the '50s TV to which it condescends; certainly it's got none of the depth, poignance, and brilliance of The Truman Show, the recent TV-is-stifling drama that immediately comes to mind."[20] Dave Rettig of Christian Answers said: "On a surface level, the message of the film appears to be 'morality is black and white and pleasant, but sin is color and better,' because often through the film the Pleasantvillians become color after sin (adultery, premarital sex, physical assault, etc...). In one scene in particular, a young woman shows a brightly colored apple to young (and not yet colored) David, encouraging him to take and eat it. Very reminiscent of the Genesis's account of the fall of man."[21]
Time Out New York reviewer Andrew Johnston observed, "Pleasantville doesn't have the consistent internal logic that great fantasies require, and Ross just can't resist spelling everything out for the dim bulbs in the audience. That's a real drag, because the film's fundamental premise—crossing America's nostalgia fixation with Pirandello and the Oz/Narnia/Wonderland archetype—is so damn cool, the film really should have been a masterpiece."[22]
Jesse Walker, writing a retrospective in the January 2010 issue of Reason, argued that the film was misunderstood as a tale of kids from the 1990s bringing life into the conformist world of the 1950s. Walker points out that the supposedly outside influences changing the town of Pleasantville—the civil rights movement, J. D. Salinger, modern art, premarital sex, cool jazz and rockabilly—were all present in the 1950s. Pleasantville "contrasts the faux '50s of our TV-fueled nostalgia with the social ferment that was actually taking place while those sanitized shows first aired".[23]
Accolades
Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
---|---|---|---|
Academy Awards[24] | Best Art Direction | Jeannine Oppewall and Jay Hart | Nominated |
Best Costume Design | Judianna Makovsky | Nominated | |
Best Original Dramatic Score | Randy Newman | Nominated | |
American Comedy Awards[25] | Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture | William H. Macy | Nominated |
Art Directors Guild Awards[26] | Excellence in Production Design for a Feature Film | Jeannine Oppewall | Nominated |
Artios Awards[27] | Best Casting for Feature Film – Drama | Ellen Lewis and Debra Zane | Nominated |
Awards Circuit Community Awards | Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Joan Allen | Nominated |
Best Art Direction | Jeannine Oppewall and Jay Hart | Nominated | |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Best Costume Design | Judianna Makovsky | Nominated | |
Best Original Score | Randy Newman | Nominated | |
Best Visual Effects | Nominated | ||
Best Cast Ensemble | Nominated | ||
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards[28] | Best Supporting Actor | William H. Macy (also for A Civil Action and Psycho) | Won[a] |
Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won | |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards[29] | Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Nominated |
Chlotrudis Awards[30] | Best Supporting Actress | Nominated | |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Costume Designers Guild Awards[31] | Excellence in Costume Design for Film | Judianna Makovsky | Won |
Critics' Choice Movie Awards[32] | Best Picture | Nominated | |
Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won[b] | |
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Won | |
Hugo Awards | Best Dramatic Presentation | Gary Ross | Nominated |
International Film Music Critics Association Awards[33] | Best Original Score for a Drama Film | Randy Newman | Nominated |
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards[34] | Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won |
Best Production Design | Jeannine Oppewall | Won | |
Online Film & Television Association Awards[35] | Best Comedy/Musical Picture | Jon Kilik, Gary Ross and Steven Soderbergh | Nominated |
Best Comedy/Musical Actress | Joan Allen | Nominated | |
Best Supporting Actress | Nominated | ||
Best First Feature | Gary Ross | Nominated | |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Best Comedy/Musical Score | Randy Newman | Nominated | |
Best Adapted Song | "Across the Universe" Music and Lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney Performed by Fiona Apple | Won | |
Best Makeup | Nominated | ||
Best Visual Effects | Nominated | ||
Online Film Critics Society Awards[36] | Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Best Editing | William Goldenberg | Nominated | |
Best Original Score | Randy Newman | Won | |
Producers Guild of America Awards[37] | Most Promising Producer in Theatrical Motion Pictures | Gary Ross | Won |
Satellite Awards[38] | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Nominated | |
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Jeff Daniels | Nominated | |
Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Joan Allen | Won | |
Best Director | Gary Ross | Nominated | |
Best Original Screenplay | Won | ||
Best Art Direction | Jeannine Oppewall and Jay Hart | Nominated | |
Best Cinematography | John Lindley | Nominated | |
Best Costume Design | Judianna Makovsky | Nominated | |
Best Editing | William Goldenberg | Nominated | |
Best Original Score | Randy Newman | Nominated | |
Saturn Awards[39] | Best Fantasy Film | Won | |
Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won | |
Best Performance by a Younger Actor/Actress | Tobey Maguire | Won | |
Best Writing | Gary Ross | Nominated | |
Best Costumes | Judianna Makovsky | Nominated | |
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards[40] | Best Picture | 7th Place | |
Best Supporting Actress | Joan Allen | Won | |
Teen Choice Awards[41] | Choice Movie – Drama | Nominated | |
Most Funniest Scene | Reese Witherspoon and Joan Allen | Nominated | |
Turkish Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Film | 13th Place | |
Young Hollywood Awards[42] | Female Breakthrough Performance | Reese Witherspoon | Won |