Answers raise questions

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2001)

This movie provides a look at the Quiz Show scandal of the late '50s. It is good entertainment and raises questions about human nature--how people can be driven by greed to cheat, whether a situation of sort of "entrapment" cheating is more morally justifiable than without, whether "anybody would have done it," and more specifically, whether you or I would have acted in the same manner in the situations depicted.
Still, there is another issue: whether trivia is so great as a thing in itself. This question must be borne in mind, and was addressed well in a letter to the editor of a newspaper I was reading a few weeks after "Quiz Show" was released. It pointed out that we must be careful not to glorify trivia, and that in fact those who dwell on it too much are losers. I consider myself a trivia expert in many categories, and I and many people enjoy trivia a lot, but we are reminded to look elsewhere (like writing movie reviews, I guess). The high water marks of "Quiz Show" project an apotheosis of trivia, trivia for trivia's sake, needing nothing else. Obviously, this raises questions of values, and substance. Remember that other accomplishments in life, life's basics, are more important.