Not That Original Or Groundbreaking

Rating: 6/10 (28 August 2005)

Let's not delude ourselves that THE TRUMAN SHOW is all that iconoclastic , prophetic or mind blowing original . In the late 1960s Nigel Kneale wrote a BBC teleplay called THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS where very similar ideas are explored so the central plot of a man having his whole life manipulated and broadcast to billions of watching people isn't all that clever if you're familiar with the works of Nigel Kneale
I have to confess that while this movie was released in 1998 a couple of years before reality TV saturated the airwaves of western television i had never seen it until a couple of days ago which means my view of this movie especially its plot is prejudiced by a force fed television diet of ordinary people going about their lives so the idea that billions of people watching a man selling insurance comes across as totally ridiculous to me . We've seen BIG BROTHER become a parody of itself ( And has been parodied in the recent series of DOCTOR WHO ) while other similar shows have suffered from slipping ratings and critical backlash . So it seems ridiculous that billions of people across the globe are compelled to watch a mundane real life show for thirty years
Not to be totally negative what the producers have done with THE TRUMAN SHOW is structure it correctly where it's revealed from the outset that Truman Burbank is unwittingly living inside a massive TV studio . If the story had been constructed as a M Night Shymalan type mystery where it's revealed to the audience at the end that it's all a television show this would have been a disaster , can you imagine the word of mouth giving away the ending ? Without hammering it home there is a logic to the motives of producing a show like this - Product placement , and Jim Carrey gives a restrained performance and makes Truman a sympathetic character . But if it's mind blowing prophesy and social commentary you desire then I'm afraid THE TRUMAN SHOW is inferior to THE YEAR OF THE SEX OPLYMPICS