This is a film you must see. End of!

Rating: 10/10 (8 October 2016)

I don't know why I really should bother writing the 915th review of this film on IMDb, but such is the power of The Truman Show that I saw myself left with no choice but to. To put it in simplistic terms, this film is nigh-on perfect. There is no fault with this film, and if anyone finds a fault with it, I would love to be informed of said fault to see if it is really a fault. Jim Carrey gives the best performance of the year (with maybe the exception of Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful) as Truman Burbank, perfectly portraying the paranoia and strife a man in such dire circumstances must go through. Ed Harris is enigmatic and scene-stealing as Christof, and honestly I think it is one of the best-written parts in the last twenty years of cinema. The rest of the cast are excellent too, ranging from Laura Linney as an actress who knows that The Truman Show is her big break, to Paul Giamatti in a very small role in the "real" world. Andrew Niccol's script is one of the best ever in Hollywood, on par with Paddy Chayefsky's Network and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Peter Weir's direction is brilliant, but I now find myself contradicting what I earlier said about there being no faults with this film. The only fault with this film is that they didn't go far enough. I read in the trivia section on IMDb that Peter Weir planned to have the film cut, the screen shows people watching the film in the theater through a security webcam, and then keep going on with the film. This would have been amazing, and we are left with only wishful thinking of what might've been. Several other deleted scenes, one being a jogger portrayed by an actor who two days previous had played a homeless man in a wheelchair, would have elevated this film from nigh-on perfect to as important as Network or dare I say Citizen Kane. In one of the strongest years in film, this film was almost thrown into the gutter and forgotten about at the Academy Awards. I need not tell you how much of a disgrace it is Carrey didn't win for Best Actor and Niccol win for Best Original Screenplay. Thank God everyone else on IMDb agrees with me that this film is outstanding, except with its current ranking of 207, I am also disappointed because really it should be top 25-30. This film contains many subtle messages, from schizophrenia to the power the media holds in our society, and it is very difficult to choose what moment is best, except I think I have it. At the very end, and in case anyone didn't see the banner at the top SPOILER ALERT, when Truman exits his alternate reality, and the show ends, we see two men discuss what to watch next, so seamlessly as if they have to watch something. This is the best moment of the film because it shows our complete lack of care for Truman, and that once something ends that we have devoted time to watching it, we must go and begin to watch something else. This film is difficult to comprehend with one viewing, but once you appreciate its power, its subtleties and its satirical messages, then you will relate to this review.