The Truman Show Review
by "Richard Scheib" (roogulator AT hotmail DOT com)October 16th, 1998
THE TRUMAN SHOW
USA. 1998. Director - Peter Weir, Screenplay - Andrew Niccol, Producers - Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, Scott Rudin & Adam Schroeder, Photography - Peter Biziou, Music - Burkhard Dallwitz, Visual Effects Supervisor - Micheal J. McAlister, Visual Effects - Cinesite (Supervisor - Brad Kuehn), The Computer Film Co & Matte World Digital (Supervisor - Craig Barron), Special Effects Supervisor - Larz Anderson, Production Design - Dennis Gassner. Production Company - Paramount.
Jim Carrey (Truman Burbank), Ed Harris (Christof), Laura Linney (Meryl Burbank/Helen Gill), Noah Emmerich (Marlon/Louis Coltrane), Natascha McElhone (Lauren Garland/Sylvia)
Plot: Truman Burbank leads an ordinary untroubled life as an insurance salesman and a married man. Unaware of it the entire town he lives in is an artificial construct, everyone around him really being an actor and he really the subject of `The Truman Show', a reality tv show that is watched by millions where every thing that has happened since he was born has been scripted and his every reaction filmed. But a series of mishaps - a fallen spotlight, his accidental tuning into a radio channel monitoring him, the reappearance of the actor playing his father who was killed off - make him begin to suspect the artificiality of his reality. He holds a secret longing for an extra that once tried to tell him the truth before being caught and makes a concerted attempt to leave the town to find her, while the entire cast and crew make every effort to stop him.
‘The Truman Show' was written by New Zealander Andrew Niccol. Niccol made an impressive writing/directing debut with last year's ‘Gattaca' and continues to impress again here. It is possible in ‘Truman' that Niccol may have been inspired by Bernard Tavernier's `La Mort en Direct/Deathwatch' (1979) which was set in a future where death was so rare that a woman with a rare terminal condition became secretly without her knowledge the subject of a tv show. However Niccol's treatment of the theme here is remarkable and unique, making for that rarity of a film that is wholly original.
The central premise in ‘Truman' is that Jim Carrey makes the discovery that his entire life is part of a tv show that is being scripted and played out by the people around him for a watching audience of billions. One is not spoiling any big surprise by telling this as the film's publicity machine makes one aware of this from the start. Half the fun in the film comes from its' setting up Carrey's idyllic lifestyle and then letting us watching the subtle intrusions the tv show make into the familiarity of its ‘reality' - a crowd crossing the street suddenly freezing as a feedback whine jams their earpieces; people contriving to twist situations so they can stop and conduct product endorsements or push Carrey into shot up against advertising billboards; the marvellous little excuses that keep getting invented every time something goes wrong or Carrey tries to leave the town - there's an hilarious visit to a travel agent's office where the background is filled with travel posters which instead of offering invitations to sunny destinations advertise in the direst tones possible the hazards of travel. The film even starts to cleverly play with audience perceptions - what one takes to be a standard musical score playing throughout is revealed as being played by background musicians; or the moment the hero's best friend makes a heartfelt plea "Would I lie to you ?" and the film pulls away to reveal this as a scripted line being fed into an earpiece. Most of the shots in the film mimic the camera shots of reality tv shows. Even the opening credits are for the tv show rather than for the film.
Peter Weir becomes the first director to tone down and actually obtain a relatively sane performance out of Jim Carrey. All of Carrey's previous films - ‘The Mask' (1994), ‘The Cable Guy' (1996), ‘Liar Liar' (1997) and the ‘Ace Ventura' movies - have been founded completely as veritable amphitheatres for Carrey's rafter-rattling histrionics. Weir is the first director to tone Carrey's irritatingly loud facial gymnastics down and allow the story on its own to carry the film. One can't help but think a more average-seeming performer might have been better suited to the film but still Carrey acquits himself capably upon this occasion - although ironically only by failing to dominate the film.
The conceptual audacity of both ‘Gattaca' and ‘Truman' show Niccol as one of the most promising young writers around at the moment. Niccol indeed has the ability of all good science-fiction writers to construct scenarios that are extrapolated from a single ‘What If' premise - how would a genetic dropout survive in a world founded on genetic purity ? what if a man found his entire life was being staged as a tv show ? - and to work the premises to thoroughly logical conclusions. In both cases Niccol intriguingly creates heroes whose entire struggles centre on having to outwit and subvert an entire social order that is set against them A quite remarkable film.
Copyright 1998 Richard Scheib
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