slick but thin

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 1998)

The Truman Show You probably know the basic plot of The Truman Show by now. And that's probably due to the power of television advertising. A baby who is called Truman Burbank is nurtured to manhood for thirty years as the subject of a generations long soap, but he is never told that he's a television star. Every one he knows is an actor, including his wife and best friend, who have been contracted to act on a specially constructed set for five thousand hidden cameras. They are all recording the growth and life of Truman Burbank on 24 hour television. The soap, called The Truman Show, is a runaway success making billions for the producers through product endorsements, but runs into problems when Truman starts to realise that something is wrong. He starts to discover the lie. Jim Carrey plays Truman as a bland everyman, as far removed from Ace Ventura or even The Cable Guy as could be imagined, although there are still elements of Carrey's manic characters hidden behind the ordinariness, in particular that peculiar throwing the head back laugh of his. Most comics ache to do drama, serious acting, and Carrey has enough clout and money now to throw in the odd comparatively straight movie. This one is still a bit twisted though. He's blessed in The Truman Show by having Aussie Peter Weir in charge, a thoughtful director with an amazingly impressive C.V. including Witness, The Year Of Living Dangerously, Fearless, Dead Poet's Society, Mosquito Coast, The Cars That Ate Paris and Picnic At Hanging Rock. Weir with The Truman Show has concocted a very steady, pensive film, which is a comment on the processes, evilness and effects of live television. The Truman Show is thought provoking because it seems feasible. We could believe that a television corporation would invest the millions it would have taken to create The Truman Show, buy itself a baby lead actor and then deceive that child for decades for the entertainment of the masses. We can also believe, I think, that it's possible that the viewing public, and a government, could have sanctioned such a process, arguing no doubt that since the child/adult is living an idyllic (suburban) life style, then what harm could possibly have been done. And anyway "let's entertain the public, give 'em what they want". The public, the audience of The Truman Show love it. They avidly watch this soap during the intervals in their own lives, in Truman Show Bars and I can imagine them living Truman's life with him in their own toilets, on buses and in post offices and banks (if there still is such a thing in this future as a post office and a bank!) Such an audience would hate to miss a thing. After all it is often easier to confront someone else's problems and life choices rather than your own. Then there are the deceptions themselves. Just how fanciful are the scenarios suggested by this movie? A subplot of The Truman Show involves an actress (played by Natascha McElhone ) who gains a conscience and tries to tell Burbank about the lie that is his whole life. But what about the others? In particular his best friend played by Noah Emmerich and also his wife (Laura Linney), who seems to be in a particularly invidious moral position. Is this how low mass entertainment might stoop.? Can we expect worse in the future? Have we already seen worse? The Clinton affair, the Di soapy and most of the Oprah stuff is pretty weird already. And what about the audience, the consumers of Burbank Truman's life? They cheer Truman on when he rushes to escape but you'd bet that they would demand a replacement quick smart; a dream filler from TV land. How could the addicts of a show like The Truman Show live without another shallow dream to take its place? The Truman Show puts interesting questions to us all and is a strongly realised social comment from one of our fabulous Aussie directors. Nothing new is suggested really, except for the scale of the deception in The Truman Show but Peter Weir does create his film world with great precision and believability. Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers was on a similar theme and even The Simpsons has had a good go at sensationalist TV in that famous episode where Homer gets into trouble for allegedly pinching his baby sitter's bum, (for those who might be interested!) The Truman Show takes two hours to tell us little we didn't know already and for all of its superior qualities seems a little thin. I would have liked to have followed Truman Burbank out into the real world, perhaps along the lines of Bad Boy Bubby, but The Truman Show still has me thinking, and that's an achievement these days.