i rented this movie with very high hopes . 
this movie got praise as one of the best films of 1998 , and unfortunately , was not as good as i hoped , but was still very intriguing and thought provoking . 
first of all , the casting for this film is great . 
tobey maguire and reese witherspoon are the future of hollywood . 
they play their roles as the parker brother and sister perfectly . 
with a plot as unbelievable as this film , you need chemistry and honest acting from your cast . 
tobey and reese ( bud and mary sue parker ) play their roles perfectly and display their characters with honesty and believability . 
william h . macy , an actor i have grown to love over the past year , turns in another great performance as the tv dad who is torn over his wife , a " colored " person and his friends , the " non-colored " ones . 
he also displays believability and must display a certain lack of chemistry with his wife . 
he does this perfectly and yet again shows why he should be one of the top actors in hollywood . 
joan allen is equally great as betty parker , the ideal tv mom . 
her character is the most ambitious . 
she is very na ? ve , and must display this well to make her character believable and she does just that . 
her lack of chemistry with macy , which the role calls for , and her developed chemistry with jeff daniels is terrific , and if daniels would have been as stellar as the rest of the cast , then this film would even been even better . 
as said before , jeff daniels gives a bad performance . 
his character displays the change going on throughout the town , yet he does not display it with enough conviction . 
his character is very confusing and he is not very believable . 
this film could have been elevated to a whole new level had daniels been able to give a better performance . 
the movie is very provocative . 
it challenges the issues of racism that existed in the past and that still exist today . 
i really was not expecting all of the elements they brought up , but they pulled them off with such flair that it was mind blowing . 
they demonstrate the racism issue without a hitch , but do it in a slow pace . 
the only major flaw in the film besides the performance by daniels is length . 
some films are not meant to be that long . 
pleasantville is one of those films . 
this film could have been so much better had they not moved so slowly to it . 
first , they are amazed by the implementation of color . 
then they want to have it . 
then they do not want to . 
then the war ensues between the colored and non-colored . 
this is all strung out over two hours , which was way too long . 
some movies need a lot of time . 
saving private ryan was a little bit under three hours long and i thought it could have used more time . 
this film is only two hours long , and seems much longer . 
length is everything in films . 
if you can nail down the perfect timing and pace , you can win half the battle . 
pleasantville can move at a good pace at times , but it is not consistent enough . 
overall , pleasantville is a very pleasant and provocative departure from the predictability of most films these days . 
i went in expecting a light-hearted film about change . 
i left learning an important lesson about racism and the way things change . 
luckily , pleasantville teaches this lesson in such a way to make it appeal to all audiences . 
only if it could have done in a shorter amount of time .