Pleasantville

A charming, clever satire of 50s American ideals and the need for self-liberation. Brother and sister David and Jennifer (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) are transported from the present day into a 50s black-and-white TV sitcom called Pleasantville, a world of good manners and happy families. As the teenagers' liberal attitudes and ideas spread amongst the population, the monochrome world of Pleasantville springs gloriously into Technicolour. As a metaphor for the importance of liberal thinking, it's inspired, and it becomes even more pertinent when the town's moral majority begins to separate out from the "coloured" population.

Joan Allen, as a suburban housewife discovering her sexuality for the very first time, is particularly moving and provides the movie's emotional touchstone, embuing director/screenwriter Gary Ross' enterprise with genuine feeling. A masturbation scene to better anything shown in the American Pie movies and Fiona Apple's cover of Beatles classic "Please Send Me Someone To Love" stand out, but this is a film to savour on almost every level.