Review: Film: The Truman Show

Promotional poster.

Big Brother. I'm a Celebrity. Britain's Got Talent, X Factor, Pop Idol, American Idol, Top Chef, Masterchef, The Apprentice, Coach Trip, Dinner Date. All of these are reality shows; television brought up around real people doing supposedly real things with real drama and real characters. This genre arguably began in 2000, with the creation of the Big Brother experiment in which a group of people were put in a house for three months and filmed constantly. However, the genre had been pastiched by several films in the previous years - the most powerful of them being Peter Weir's The Truman Show.
      Set in the sunny shore-town of Seahaven, Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is an average guy living a normal life. Or so he believes. In reality, he has spent his entire life living in the world's largest set, being watched 24/7 by millions of cameras for every country in the world. When his supposedly dead father appears as an extra, he soon begins to suspect that all around him may not be as it seems.
      Two years ago I called The Truman Show my favourite film, and with good reason. The film's design is so clever and its characters so well-written that it really tickles my chestnut. Most of all, the film's grand concept is such a pastiche of the reality that I grew up in -  a world where "reality" is so moulded and shaped by fiction that it becomes itself unreal.

Jim Carrey's best performance is uniquely
human.

       This is easily Carrey's best performance in his long career, maybe surpassed only by the well-made but badly executed I Love You Phillip Morris. The key to this, of course, is a mixture of his talents; he offsets his madcap comedy style with a lot of real emotion and potentcy that perfectly contrasts the constructed nature of the world around him. Although the character is flawed, this is what makes him the only True Man in the complex.
      I can't say any more without spoiling the feel of the film, but the reason that I love The Truman Show is because of its intensely well-contructed concepts, blended with characterisation to die for and a soundtrack worthy of great praise. All I can do is advise you to go out and see it, and perhaps hope that you share my vast sense of wonderment at this cinematic creation.

Thanks.