Living the "Right Life"

There is no “right life”. But there is YOUR life.

I recently saw the 1998 New Line Cinema movie “Pleasantville”. Pleasantville is a fantasy about two teenagers (“David Wagner/Bud Parker” played by Tobey Maguire and “Jennifer Wagner/Mary Sue Parker” played by Reese Witherspoon). In this movie, David and Jennifer are transported mysteriously into a made-for-TV sitcom named Pleasantville (think “Father Knows Best” “Ozzie and Harriet”, or “Leave It to Beaver”.

Pleasantville is just like the name implies. Everything’s perfect. In Pleasantville, no one is ever sick, the geography extends no further than Main Street, the hometown sport teams always win, no one goes hungry, and no one ever says a mean thing to one another. On the other hand, there’s no art in Pleasantville, married couples sleep in twin beds, there’s no such thing as sex, and everything is in black and white.

As the movie progresses, Bud and Mary Sue (the transported-into-the TV versions of David and Jennifer) begin to introduce “real-life” foreign elements into the community. Mary Sue introduces local boys to the idea of sex, and Bud begins to explore painting with the local soda fountain clerk (played by Jeff Daniels). Before long, much of the community is engaged in real life experimentation of all sorts. In the movie, characters unveiling their true, inner selves begin to be filmed in color. It’s almost as if each town member must recognize his or her own shadow before turning into full color. One by one, the community members begin to appear in color, until the last town member experiences his own revelation and begins to be filmed in color.

At the end of the movie, Reese Witherspoon’s character decides to stay in Pleasantville while Toby Maguire’s character (David Wagner) decides to return home. When David returns home (outside of the fantasy of Pleasantville), he ends up having a heart-to-heart talk with his real mother. She is lamenting about a failed marriage and an unfulfilled life. David’s mom is upset and in tears that she was always trying to live the “right life”, and then realized there was no such thing as a “right life”.

Here’s the dialog from the movie:

David's Mom: When your father was here, I used to think, "This was it. This is the way it was always going to be. I had the right house. I had the right car. I had the right life."

David: There is no right house. There is no right car.

How often have you been searching for how to live the right life? Is there any such thing? You may only ever live your own life. You cannot live someone else’s life. While it may serve to live to someone else’s standard while you’re young and still maturing, it’s only counterproductive to live your life to someone else’s standard once you’re past that stage.

There's no right life, there's only your life!