The Truman Show
Everything speaks against this film. It’s a popular film from Hollywood starring Jim Carrey, what else could go wrong? Well, things didn’t go wrong at all. Australian director Peter Weir has worked marvels with the intelligent script by Anthony Niccol (who wrote and directed last year’s brilliant Gattaca) and made one of this year’s best movies. A hell of a balance was struck between Hollywood happiness and an extremely thought-provoking script and I for one am surprised and extremely happy.
The story as you should well know is that Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is a man living in a controlled dome (the town of Seahaven) where every other person is an actor. Over five-thousand cameras record his every move, broadcasting live to the world every second of the day. The Truman Show is the highest rating television event ever and the brainchild of Christof, an extremely creepy Ed Harris who thinks that the outside world is so sick that we would prefer to exist within an artificial one. The fact that much of Seahaven looks like it comes out of 50s middle-America says a lot about how this era has become an idyllic utopia to many Americans, Christof in particular. Scarily enough this town exists as represented in the film and bills itself as a return to traditional 50s values. How’s that for blurring the distinction between fact and fantasy?
The film starts with Truman beginning to realise that his life isn’t all it seems when a light falls from the ‘sky’ marked as one of the stars in the night sky. Other things go awry such as a very localised rain shower, and a homeless man who resembles Truman’s dead father. This is where the incredibly good scripting gives us more depth than an average Hollywood movie would. We never go into explicit detail about the issues raised in the film but they are there for all of us to see and hopefully to think about. I’ve been on a severe David Cronenberg kick lately so The Truman Show comes across to me in that same vein. It’s not Videodrome but it says more about the way we relate to television in the 90s than anything else I’ve seen.
The tale of Truman’s father goes like this: Truman expressed interest in travelling as a child so Christof creates various situations to keep him in Seahaven, culminating in the event that makes him terrifed of travelling over water. On a sailing trip a storm is created which washes Truman’s father overboard and ‘drowns’ him. Just think about it: a child is traumatised live in front of an audience of millions just so the show can continue and Truman stays put. This is nothing short of torture. It’s ideas like this that made watching The Truman Show such a great experience. Although there are a few opponents to the show (and one of these people is in fact the crux of most of the story) a vast majority of viewers adore it. Just how far would we allow, or even demand, television to go for our entertainment? Would we really become addicted to a show where a man who has been legally adopted by a television network (owned by a corporation in other words!) is manipulated at every turn? Unfortunately I think the answer is yes. But as I said these things are never made the central theme of the film. It’s also a tale of Truman (the individual) trying desperately to get out of Seahaven (the corporate state) and being foiled at every turn. This builds a sense of extreme paranoia, culminating in a scene where the entire townsfolk come out to find him, very much like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. There’s a very touching love story that forms the basis of Truman’s desire to escape too, but it’s never taken to extremes and made more melodramatic than it should be. And in that sense we have another of Peter Weir’s touches that lift the film well above the average. We spend a lot of the film watching Truman’s life through hidden cameras, and flashbacks aren’t the inner monologue that they normally are in a film; they’re montages assembled in the control room and edited in to the broadcast. We never actually get a chance to see what Truman is thinking because a television audience never would, we only know that he’s been observing his environment, drawing conclusions and making realisations by watching his actions.
Carrey does the same job in front of the camera as Weir does behind it; superb. I’ve never liked Carrey before, his stupid comedy doesn’t appeal to me, but he’s exceeded all expectations this time. He acts pretty silly and spouts clichés, but that’s the way Truman Burbank has been created, and he eventually breaks out of his rut. I was very impressed with the way Carrey handled himself, he really made us give a damn about the fate of Truman Burbank which is important for the end to have any emotional impact.
In all The Truman Show is watchable, thought-provoking and somewhat subversive. There are no shocks or surprises in store for the audience so don’t go along expecting any. What could have been an ordinary film at best (or an awful film more likely than not) is lifted up by an intelligent script, good acting and perfectly executed directing. Don’t hesitate to see it.
Craig Andrews
