A miracle

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 1999)

(Warning: might include spoilers!)
At first, I wasn't especially interested in seeing The Truman Show. I thought: how can a movie starring Jim Carrey be any good? After all, he made The Cable Guy one of the worst ever movies. Little did I know that Carrey would contribute in making The Truman Show one of my all-time favorite movies!
Truman Show has one of the most nuanced and subtle scripts I've come across. The story simply nails you to your seat. Directing is brilliant, thanks to master-director Peter Weir, also responsible for the stunning Dead Poets Society. Here, Weir re-creates the world in which Truman Burbanks lives and is being (involuntarily) filmed 24 hours a day. Peter Weir actually places us there, on the spot next to Truman, shares us Truman's feelings and thoughts.We laugh as he laughs, and we cry along with him. Towards the end of the film, we sense Truman's despair and hopelessness deep inside of us, even though we already know all about his situation. The reason for this is that Weir manages to make Truman represent mankind. Truman could be any one of us.
The Truman Show is a movie playing on many levels at once. It has humor and drama. It concerns our need for entertainment and reveals an increasingly shameless media-industry ("the first channel to adopt a child."), as well as man's fight and struggle to break out of tediousity and distress; basically our need for freedom.
There are so many details here: the pin with the words "how is it going to end?", the various ways Truman is being kept at Seahaven (the preventive posters at the travel agency has to be seen to be believed)... And notice how Christof falls forward at the end, as if he had lost everything, even his own life, the very moment Truman gained his.
Acting is flawless. From the "acting actors" - Laura Linney as Truman's wife and Noah Emmerich as his best friend Marlon - to Ed Harris as Christof, along with Christof's companions. Harris carries out a truly awesome performance, he steals every scene. And finally: Jim Carrey is magnificent as Truman Burbanks (from the Burbanks galaxy : ) He does everything right. He is goofy when it's called for, and genuinely moving and emotional at other times. I can't think of a better actor to portray Truman's everyday life.
I've seen The Truman Show six times now, and I will buy the home video cassette and put it on my shelf. This is an utter perfect movie, and one of my five favorite movies of all time.