Neurologist Oliver Sacks (author of Awakenings and An Anthropologist on Mars, among other case-study anthologies) would have a field day with the good folks of Pleasantville, a TV-Land town whose black-and-white citizens turn colour upon enlightment. The movie begs us not to question the hows or whys of siblings David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) getting literally zapped into their television, which is fine--I don't care how Robin Williams wound up playing "Jumanji" from inside the board, either.

Unfortunately, writer-director Gary Ross tests our patience by leaving other, very reasonable questions unanswered, such as if Pleasantville residents have never seen colour, how do they know blue by name? Or: if the books in Pleasantville's library are stocked with blank pages, how come nobody there is illiterate? In other words, the movie's most provocative suggestion is not that racial intolerance is inherent to any culture, but that recognition of colour and literacy are not cognitive skills.

Present-day David is the World's Biggest fan of "Pleasantville", a "Father Knows Best"-style family values sitcom from the nineteen-fifties. One lonely Friday night, at the start of a "Pleasantville" marathon, an uninvited TV repairman (Don Knotts) channels him and his rebellious sister (Reese Witherspoon), as they fight over the remote, into the show's alternate universe. The two must live out the lives of characters Bud and Mary Sue Parker, son and daughter of housewife Betty (Joan Allen) and office man George (William H. Macy). David, knowing every episode by heart, finds it easy to blend in. Careless Jennifer is intent on taking Pleasantville by storm: within hours of her arrival she has stolen a basketball player's virginity and schooled naïve Mom in the birds and the bees. Jennifer's impulsivness triggers a most unusual effect on the grey landscape: flowers, trees, even people begin to look more...saturated...than usual. At first, David scrambles to undo Jennifer's "mistakes," but when the love bug bites him unsuspectingly, he joins the Pleasantville revolution.

Ross (co-screenwriter of Big) has wrought a well-photographed (by John Lindley) film for his directorial debut, one that is fascinating for its flaws and strengths in equal measure. Pleasantville, which recalls the fantasies of Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future) in gloss and spirit, if not intelligence, sketches a happily repressed microcosmic society corrupted by the introduction of free-spirited sex. Those who discover passion in Pleasantville gain an external vibrance; the town's traditionalist mayor Big Bob (the late J.T. Walsh) outlaws what he sees this as--"unpleasantness"--resulting in street riots and political protests.

But Ross wants to have his cake and eat it, too: David delivers a rallying speech that champions self-exploration and experimentation. Ross comments on a separate audio track of the DVD release that observers simultaneously labelled Pleasantville "amoral and moralistic," and that he revels in such a contradiction. I'd be embarrassed to take pride in such an oxymoron--it demonstrates just how wishy-washy the film's objective ultimately is. Pleasantville's most problematic character is Macy's: as a chauvanistic father and husband utterly dependent on his wife's homecare (he doesn't even know how to heat up leftovers), we actually pity him when she takes up with a golly-gee soda shop owner (Jeff Daniels). It's not George's fault that he's a prototypical man-of-the-house TV character (not bad, drawn that way), and Ross is cruel to him. Adding insult to injury, George's final scene is pointlessly ambiguous, a cop-out and a letdown.

Ross makes two other of what I consider to be smaller missteps: David has every episode of "Pleasantville" memorized, but he doesn't have fun with this superior knowledge when he arrives there. While he lipsynchs Bud's dialogue when watching the show from his couch, as Bud he can barely think of anything to say that doesn't scream his true identity. Finally, the Don Knotts character's exit is reduced to a pick-up shot--his true payoff appears to have been left in error in the trim bin.

Pleasantville effectively touches on giant issues such as racism (the "No Coloreds" signs in the windows are a clever touch) and book-burning (which is always an image far scarier than blood-and-guts violence), but it's a bit too PG-13 "pleasant" in its execution. While the film is astutely performed (particularly by Macy and Maguire--the latter has a mischievous twinkle in his eye that offsets one of the most honest faces in movies), lushly scored (by Randy Newman), and thought-provoking, Ross' shapeless intentions leave no room for Pleasantville in my heart.

Pleasantville has been released as part of New Line's "Platinum Series" on DVD. It's a predictably stunning package, given the studio's history of top-notch special editions. For starters, this is the first home video digital-to-digital transfer (which means, in a nutshell, that the image on the disc was transfered from digital video, not from an interpositive--of course, Pleasantville originated on 35mm film stock), beating Disney's upcoming digitally transferred DVD of A Bug's Life to the punch. The image is possibly the finest I've yet seen on the format: clear, loaded with detail--flawless, perhaps. Presented in 1.85:1, Pleasantville has also been enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Though I viewed it downconverted for 4:3, I caught few instances of shimmer or stepping.

In addition to two running commentary tracks, Pleasantville features both 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital sound. I listened only to the 5.1 track and was pleased. There are very few split surround effects (save for thunder and the occasional crowd noise); much of the music, however, is localized in the surrounds. The LFE channel is used very sparingly, but swift bass jolted me in a good way when a tree in the front yard of Bud and Mary Sue's house burst into flames. Dialogue is extremely clear and balanced at all times--I didn't reach for the volume control during the quieter scenes.

The included feature-length commentary from Ross is a tad disappointing. He has lofty, suspect notions regarding his picture and treats the filmmaking process with little humour. This disc also includes an isolated score (in 5.1!), with composer Randy Newman discussing his approach between cues. If his thoughts could use a little more organization, I found them entertaining at least. (Newman avoids string instruments whenever possible, we learn, but as his Pleasantville score demonstrates, he knows how and when to employ them.)

That's not all. There's a half-hour's worth of documentary material on the special effects (did you know that Joan Allen wore green make-up, a la "She Hulk," for a key sequence?--it's a wonder that Daniels and company were able to keep a straight face), the cinematography (Lindley explains how the labs accomplished consistent colour in the release prints), and the soda shop mural (which is a surreal supplement: its artist spends more time searching for his favourite chair to sit in during the interview than discussing the painting itself).

My favourite extra on this DVD is the video for Fiona Apple's rich cover of The Beatles' melancholy "Across the Universe." Directed by her boyfriend, Boogie Nights helmer Paul Thomas Anderson, the four-minute segment takes place in Pleasantville's drug store and packs a greater emotional and intellectual wallop than a lot of the film. A storyboard gallery, cast and crew filmographies, a trailer (in 5.1 and 16x9 enhanced), and a goofy "colour set-up" round out this set--goofy because it displays a series of stills and instructs you to fiddle with your television until the picture looks right. (Don't throw out that copy of Video Essentials just yet.) And no, I haven't forgotten about the (PC-only) DVD-ROM content--such as the script and detailed bios--I've merely dismissed it. As an aspiring screenwriter, it frustrates me to have zero access to what is surely the most valuable content on this disc, just because I own a real DVD player.-Bill Chambers