Not the Great Movie I was expecting.

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 1999)

Someone suggested to me that this movie might have been far, far more successful if it had been differently structured: imagine if, like Truman, the audience hadn't known until the end that Truman was in a TV show. It might have given the movie a certain sense of pathos and let the audience identify a lot more with Truman. As it was, I think that too much was given away too soon...knowing that it was a TV show in advance, made it harder to identify with Truman's dilemma. It made all the show's action seem stilted, the reintroduction of his father obvious, and subplot with the mysterious redhead, unconvincing. Even the social satire came off as overwrought. As such, The Truman Show was not the great movie I was hoping for when I went to it. It had great potential, and squandered it. So consider this, my could-have-been-better pitch.