Almost There: Joan Allen in "Pleasantville"
Monday, November 30, 2020 at 8:00PM 
You guys really love Joan Allen. Once again, this three-time Academy Award nominee has won the readers' vote in the Almost There polls. When choosing from a selection of 10 non-Oscar-nominated performances in new to streaming movies, you picked Allen's turn in Gary Ross' Pleasantville. It's a 1998 fantasy about two modern teenagers who find themselves teleported inside a 1950s black-and-white sitcom. As their influence humanizes the neighborhood, sexual autonomy blossoms as do other desires, wills. Even color starts to appear in the monochrome universe. Odious prejudice is soon to follow.
Between metaphors about sexual liberation, racism, and midcentury conservativism, one cast member shines brighter than all the others, rises above the picture's relative shortcomings. As the kids' televisual mother, Joan Allen is a miracle of stilted cheeriness melting into delicate gradations of humanity…
Have you ever noticed how different smiles can be? A relaxed face with slightly upturned lips can be a signifier of many emotions, from subdued joy to rueful reminiscence, even regret. Smile with tears in your eyes and you'll sing a silent song of conflicting sentiment, be it joy so intense it makes you cry or the resilience of someone trying to project glee through a cloud of despondence. Those are all quite natural expressions, though. If the smile is too wide, the facial muscles too tense and exaggerated, you arrive at something uncanny, manic, frighteningly wrong.
All this talk of smiles serves as an introduction to Joan Allen's Betty, a performance whose arc can be tracked by the variation in grins. She's an Eisenhower-era housewife who floats through the house in her cupcake-like skirts. A domestic fairy soaring through her wholesome kingdom, Betty's studied elegance only breaks when she looks at the camera to punctuate humorless punchlines. It's a regimental existence, delineated by clichéd scripts and the tired mechanisms of classic sitcoms, repetitive rhythms, vacuous plots, stylized language that presents an idealized facsimile of suburban life.
Fittingly, when Betty smiles, the expression is like a mask hiding a personality void. She shows her teeth, eyebrows lifting in absurdist cheer, her cheeks so flexed that Allen's face looks temporarily paralyzed. It's easy to miss the early extremes of the performance or to dismiss them as shallow mugging. The actress, kept at the margins of the action in her initial scenes, is establishing the parameters of artifice that will unravel as her character grows. Noticeably, the iceberg of Betty's picture-perfect unreality begins to thaw the moment she greets someone with anything other than an empty excessive smile.
Seeing Jeff Daniels' Mr. Johnson, the owner of the local soda fountain, Betty's face betrays a glimmer of curiosity, a seedling of inner life that soon blooms into a flower of self-discovery. Later, as she inquires her daughter about the nature of sex, other variations of expression immerge. Pointedly, Betty twinkles with a shy demureness that indicates she wants to know more. She's not negatively shocked, though her social prerogatives may demand such reactions. Instead, she's full of trepidation, ready to venture into the unknown and experience her first orgasm, finding pure pleasure instead of shallow pleasentness. That last experience is so extraordinary, it literally starts a fire.
From then on, Allen's Betty keeps expanding her repertoire of expression, her collection of smiles increasing tenfold with each passing day, each personal discovery. The aftermath of the fie brings a shiny medal to her son and a wistful, distracted sort of grin to Betty's face. Technicolor shades quickly erupt, painting her skin in rosy tones, her lips read, her hair chestnut. Ashamed and insecure, she smiles through tears and has her boy paint her into grayscale, hiding her real self with cosmetic illusion. However, the audience can see that Betty is a different woman. Her smiles are no longer devoid of feeling, no longer robotic.
While one may harp on about Allen's many smiles, her entire body goes through a gradual transformation, losing its initial stiffness but also the mechanic elegance of Betty's domestic fairy schtick. In many ways, the actress is tracing an evolution in performance style, going from an idealized overt artifice to something messier, closer to the reality of being human in the world outside the television screen. It's revelatory work that only becomes more beautiful when Betty starts to truly assert her will, looking for genuine love and refusing placid conformity.
Allen's chemistry with Daniels is sublime, her smiles again mutating, becoming more genuine but also smaller. At the same time, there's a newfound sternness about Betty, the strength of her conviction turning her gaze into steel, her back into a ramrod line of righteousness. When we get to Betty's final confrontation with her husband, Joan Allen delivers the line "I don't want it to go away" with such desperate sincerity we can't help but cheer for the woman's resolve. Only after the painful process of liberation can true happiness be found, after the scalding touch of hate and the dissolution of unfulfilling matrimony. Only after that does Betty get to smile with true unbridled joy, a mother's pride, a lover's jubilation. It's a sight to behold, beautiful and overwhelming.
With all that said, you can surmise that I think this is a performance worthy of a great many gold accolades. Oscar-wise, Joan Allen did get some precursor attention in the form of critics' honors. She won the Best Supporting Actress prize from the BSFC, DFWFCA, LAFCA, SEFCA, and tied with Kathy Bates in Primary Colors for the Critics Choice Award. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for AMPAS who nominated the aforementioned Bates, Rachel Griffiths in Hilary & Jackie, Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love, Brenda Blethyn in Little Voice, and Lynn Redgrave in Gods & Monsters. Pleasantville still got three nods, but none of them were for its best element, the fantastic Oscar-worthy performance of Joan Allen.
Pleasantville is streaming on HBO Max. You can also rent it from most services.
Reader Comments (28)
Poor Steppenwolf, they're, what, 0-for-7 at the Oscars among Allen, Metcalf, Sinise, and Malkovich...am I missing anyone?
This is sort of like Joan Allen‘s Far from Heaven. What she does and the movie that exists within her is stunning. I just don’t care that much for the rest. The classic problem with loving so many supporting actress performances.
Couldn't agree more with this! A beautiful performance that should have won all the awards. She could have easily replaced Brenda Blethyn or even eventual winner Judi Dench in the lineup. I'm a fan of those two women but their performances don't come anywhere close to the mastery of this piece of work.
The lovely Rachel Griffiths took her spot. It was such a shock.
Lovely written piece about Allen’s performance in this film! Hers is always the first thing I remember about this film, especially that scene when she’s getting the gray makeup put on. Congrats to all the Joan Allen fans, we did it (again)! We should just make this a weekly series on her, showcasing each of her performances (I kid, I kid...or am I serious?).
Joan Allen should have been nominated and won by Face Off
She should've won that year. Man, I had a thing for her in this film and The Ice Storm. She's still fucking gorgeous.
Loved her in The Upside of Anger. Great chemistry with Kevin Costner. Too bad the movie was a small release in the first semester.
No doubt She’s great and nomination-worthy here and I know it’s an unpopular opinion but gonna stick with dench’s short oscar-winning performance as my own winner!
I remember that although some were still waiting for her nomination, the fact that in the end she was not nominated was not a surprise. Especially after being ignored by the Sag and Golden Globes. The fact that the Golden Globes preferred to nominate Sharon Stone for The Mighty over Joan Allen was a surprise. Or maybe not considering that the Golden Globes love stars.
I am in a minority, I know, but I have no problems with Stone being nominated for THE MIGHTY at Golden Globes, anyway this is, along with THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, Allen's role I love more. Ironically the Academy seemed fond of her and still they overlooked two of her best works...
harmodio - false.
Rachel Griffiths was great but she was a co-lead to Emily Watson, so she has nothing to do in this category.
Brenda Blethyn was the stinkstress in this category,I think the whole category is replaceable bar Bates.
My line up
Kudrow
Allen
Fonda
Clarkson
Bates
Claudio can we have an almost there for Allen in The Ice Storm in fact you could do a piece on the 3 actresses worthy of a nomination in 97 from that film Allen,Ricci and esp Weaver.
It was lovely and impressive work, and I'd be happy to swap her for Dench in that year's line-up, but if I could've give her 1 more Oscar nomination in the 1990s it'd have been for The Ice Storm.
Allen is absolutely magnificent - career-best work, richly deserving of at least a nomination (and possibly the win, tho Bates is sublime too).
Her lack of a nomination was robbery. She also should have been nominated for The Ice Storm and The Upside of Anger.
Yes, Judi Dench has very little screen time. But she commands the screen every second she's on and completely deserved her win.
Liking all The Ice Storm love on here.
Joan Allen Round 3 for Room?
As much as I love Joan Allen I am all in for Sharon Stone Golden Globe nomination that also should've been translated into a very deserving Oscar nod, Stone gives a memorable performance so far from the icy goddess with a sarcastic mouth that she always plays to perfection.Having said that I'd also place Allen in my Oscar line-up which would be:
Allen
Dench
Griffiths
Redgrave
Stone
This film would be perfect if it were about her character, William H. Macy - her husband in the movie -, and Jeff Daniels. I find the teenage protagonists unbearable, even though I really like Reese Whiterspoon. Joan Allen disappeared from the screens, what happened?
Joan Allen and Jeff Daniels are the best thing about this confused movie.
This was such a sad and sweet performance. Easily helps lift the film from being just a good film with sometimes mixed handling of its metaphors to being a REALLY good movie that gives those metaphors some true weight.
Also, Daniels is also great here as well. Both of them would've made fine additions to the '97 supporting lineups.
Sigourney should've won for the Ice Storm, hands down. Allen should have been nominated.
Keep Bates and Griffiths in the 1998 lineup. Toss out Blethyn, Redgrave, and Dench (c'mon.. too short). Add in Allen and Clarkson in High Art. There's a fantastic lineup. Then sprinkle in Lisa Kudrow for Opposite of Sex.
I'm a big Ice Storm fan. Can I say it was the first movie I loved, that got overlooked? I just remember being flabbergasted over its lack of nominations. There really should a group called "The Overlooked" which could feature Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Sigourney Weaver, etc (add your own faves). Also very pleased to see some applause for Lisa Kudrow in The Opposite of Sex. That movie slayed me.
I’m not quite as crazy about this movie as many are (or the ice storm for that matter, I realize that’s heresy) but Joan Allen in the 1990s pretty much could do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. As someone who looks at the 1998 supporting actress ballot and mostly scratches my head in confusion (only Griffiths and Bates does anything approaching oscar Caliber work IMO) I would have gladly swapped any of those women out for Allen. Not actually sure she would have been on my actual ballot, but it’s a worthy performance.
Personally for 1998 I have a damn near impossible time choosing between Kudrow for the Opposite of Sex and Clarkson for High Art. How do you top those two performances. Even considering they were outside the Oscar wheelhouse, it’s cruel that neither made the cut considering how much universal love and attention they received.