The Ultimate Media Satire

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2019)

Story of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) a man who has lived his entire life on TV without ever knowing it, everyone he has ever known was an actor and everything in his life has been scripted. Broadcast 24 hours a day from hundreds of hidden cameras in the largest television studio in the world and using a cast and crew of thousands. This is the ultimate satire of life in a media fishbowl. While he has been provided with an almost perfect existence, Truman is not entirely happy and he has begun to suspect that something is going on around him and that things may not be what they seem.
This is also the story of the audience and their dependence on this real life soap opera that has been broadcast everyday for over 10,000 straight days, and finally it is a story about the media as personified by Christof (Ed Harris) who has become the ultimate manipulator of life.
At the heart of the picture we have a well told story from screenwriter Andrew Nichol who would be nominated for an Oscar and directed by Peter Weir also Oscar nominated and one of his 6 Oscar nominations (four of which were for Direction. Both plot and character are given considerable attention here so we follow incidents but also the affects these developments have upon the characters.
The title role is well played by Carrey who gives his most restrained performance up to that time, Laura Linney gives another strong supporting performance and Ed Harris seems perfectly cast as the creator and master manipulator of this all encompassing media event, and for which he would be Oscar nominated.