Themes In Pleasantville

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David (Toby McGuire) has the picture perfect world of Pleasantville memorized from top to bottom. He envies the life of Bud and his family living in the ‘pleasant’ 1950s sit-com. David is a nerdy high school sister who’s parents are divorced and they couldn’t care less about spending time with him. Conjointly, his sister, Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon), doesn’t want anything to do with him either so she doesn’t jeopardize her popular status. However, when Jennifer and David get stuck in the same house the same night, they argue over the remote and break it. Seconds after, the doorbell rings and a strange man gives them a new remote. This remote transports them into Bud and Mary Sue from David’s dream world of Pleasantville. Forced to try and

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