Not that bad but Not that good - or even more than marginally original either

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 1999)

Back in 1990, at about 3pm I was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone where a man had caught someone removing a hidden camera from the wall in his house. This leads to a series of discoveries, such that he is on a television station dedicated solely to showing him and everything he does, 24 hours a day. Furthermore, he finds his life has been manipulated, they have set him up with a better job and even his marriage and so on - stop me if you heard any of this before. Obviously on a smaller scale but close to identical, the difference being he has benefitted as much as he has lost out in the invasion of privacy, maybe even more, thereby leading to an intriguing and enigmatic ending.
This in itself isn't a problem really. However, there are problems in this film. The foremost one is that, as with any long running enterprise of any kind, it when things go wrong, it's quite believable that they occur in a cluster.
It is not believable that for such a long running and highly controlled operation as The Truman Show that the operators would miss Truman's father getting back on the set AND him finding people waiting "off stage" where there should have a lift AND not having anything prepared if Truman were to ever want to see what his wife does at work (what, no contigency plan written a long time ago, only something thrown together at the last minute that only just works?) AND the policeman at the "nuclear accident" by name AND the truly clumsy fashion cars block his attempts to leave which might as well scream TRUMAN, you're living in a dome and we're all watching you on TV.
Yes, things would go wrong and almost inevitably a whole lot at once somewhere along the way but it's hard to believe the operators would be so inept so many times in succession over such a short period of time. The script falls down in clumsily presenting these scenes instead alternatively, have things that don't fit together perfectly (the people setting it up only work there, Truman is living it every day and would spot things they wouldn't) but are more subtle with Truman picking them up piece by piece and eventually working things out that way. Becoming gradually aware over time in a much more gradual and subtle fashion than the way that happens.
Ed Harris is excellent and the way (to Truman) his voice looks like it is literally coming down from the heavens is great. Jim Carrey and the rest of the cast do quite well in the acting department.
Of course, just to extrapolate from the ending knowing big business the show could go on after the end: imagine the interviews with Christof, the following and documenting of Truman in the outside world, tours of the dome, even the sale of houses inside it. Inevitably the selection of another child and starting the thing again. There'd still be money in it all.
So anyway, just remember, not bad but could have been better and don't whatever you do call it original, almost exactly the same thing has been done maybe as much as 10 years ago or more.