Artificiality exposing artificiality artificially

Rating: Null/10 (21 October 2001)

I should preface my comments by saying that I prefer old movies, that I am stuck in the past and hardly ever enjoy a movie made after 1975, one of the reasons being that recent movies seem to include their own rave reviews. So much money is at stake, that a movie becomes the equivalent of Columbus's voyage.
This movie is flawed on several counts: There are at least three or four Twilight Zone episodes based on the concept of someone unknowingly living an artificial life. The Twilight Zone (TV show) has everything that this film lacks: artistry, conciseness, originality, bite, and that gorgeous black and white, with plenty of shadows. The Truman Show is a one-idea, one-gag movie. Moreover, the whole notion that artificiality is bad is flawed: we are all artificial, knowingly and unknowingly. We all play roles all the time. Thus, to deplore artificiality amounts to deploring life itself. If Truman doesn't know his life is artificial, that makes it non-artificial, doesn't it?