My Favorite Film...

Rating: Null/10 (7 February 1999)

THE TRUMAN SHOW is my favorite film. When I heard Jim Carrey was starring in another film, I was a little disappointed-I'd always found him to be a little obnoxious. But as I watched the trailers, I began to think that Carrey has been holding out on us. Perhaps he was just preparing himself for this role. Here it is. Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank is my nomination for one of the finest (if the the finest) of all movie characterizations. Believe me. I know of ALL the movies. I know of Jimmy Stewart in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, of Cary Grant in BRINGING UP BABY, and of the other great performances. My knowledge of films is not just of the past 20 years, so believe me when I say Carrey has, with this one film, earned himself a place in the history books.
He works on several levels.First of all there is the comedy. He makes us laugh. And at funny things-not just a lot of crude silliness! This is talent unseen since the days of the great comics. Carrey could, if he continued making intelligent comedies like this one, be ranked alongside Chaplin and Buster Keaton in his use of pathos. Most comics, no, ALL comics of the last thirty-some years have been afraid to use pathos in their routines. Pathos is basically mixing something sentimental with something funny, making it touchingly funny. This is real skill. Jim Carrey has that talent, and will hopefully realize that he is capable of acting not obtained since Charlie Chaplin! This is an honor. Hopefully, he will select other intelligent projects like this one. He has the talent to become the greatest actor, not just funnyman, in the cinema of the future! Everyone I know shares this opinion. I saw the film on its theatrical run twice, and yet, I don't want to run to the video store to get the latest copy of it and lounge in front of the TV with it on. Why? Because THE TRUMAN SHOW is so brilliant and SO intelligent, that it must be viewed with intelligence itself. Somehow, you are much more inclined to sit up and pay attention, and think, in a cinema, than you would be popping the video in the VCR and lounging back with a bowl of chips. The film has a wonderful musical score. Although it has now been some 8 months sine I saw the film, the incidental music themes still pop in to my head every so often. And again, although it has been 4 months short of a year since I saw the film, it seems like it was just last week. That is how timeless and meaningful it really is. You just don't forget this one. It is incredible and unbelievable. I was intrigued from the first time I saw the trailer on television. The film has stayed with me like no other. A local cinema that runs nothing but the best films, old and new, ran a print of this film for a week. It is such a magnificent experience to see THE TRUMAN SHOW that both times I saw it, I left the theatre truly feeling glad to be able to see the film. I hope that it earns its proper place in the cinema history books, and that is as the greatest film in the latter half of the 20th Century!