A good idea even Hollywood couldn't ruin

Rating: Null/10 (26 July 2011)

When it came out, I remember thinking of "The Truman Show" as just a Jim Carrey vehicle - little more than an announcement than he had decided to be a dramatic actor now. Perhaps because of that conclusion I didn't watch it until recently. The movie is actually pretty good, and Carrey's casting is more than just a cold bid for box office dollars over picking the actor best suited for the role.
The premise, which oddly is much more relevant in 2011 than when the movie was made in 1998 when reality TV was in its infancy, is that Carrey's character, Truman Burbank, has been raised inside a gigantic television set and every moment of his life has been broadcast on television to a mostly adoring public. He is a television sensation interacting with actors and extras in a carefully controlled world, and has a sort of goofy sitcom way of conducting himself, complete with catch phrases, that is perfect for the show he doesn't even know he's staring in. This sort of "goofy everyman" angle actually helps explain why such a show could become popular, and is perfect for an actor like Jim Carrey who might very well be described as a "goofy everyman".
Of course, everything starts to unravel and the film becomes about if Truman will escape from his constructed world, or if he will even want to. We follow his travails along with Cristoff (Ed Harris), the diabolical creator of the world, but also through numerous fans of the show, a real cast of average Joes and Janes. We also learn about Lauren (Natasha McElhone), who infiltrated the world briefly and is Truman's true love interest, but was whisked away by the producers and is involved in a (apparently unpopular) movement to free Truman.
Living in a media-centric world, it's hard to not find the premise and possibilities of the story intriguing, even fascinating. It makes for compelling drama, and the comedy is just fun enough to not be annoying, but the reason to see this is the story, not the jokes.
The movie works. I found myself wishing they'd let him interact with his world more, instead of thrusting predetermined life events on him. Wouldn't it have been more interesting, and less likely to fail, if they'd given him some more freedom to live his own life? I also wish the movie had explained a bit better why the life of an insurance salesman could be so interesting - much of it would seemingly be pretty boring, daily routine. No doubt his otherwise monotonous days were scripted with plenty of amusing events, but we never actually saw any of these.
The movie has obvious philosophical and even theological themes, but is not anything dramatically deep. I'll forgive it for that, especially as it manages to be meaningful without being pretentious.
"The Truman Show" is just a good premise told in a competent enough manner. It's one of the more original big budget, big name films that Hollywood has cranked out, and it doesn't squander all of that potential. This movie seems to have somehow fallen by the wayside a bit, but now more than ever it should be quite enjoyable if you haven't seen it before.