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The Truman
Show
****
Cinema
Releases - October 9, 1998
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Directed by Peter Weir. Written by Andrew Niccol. Starring Jim
Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, Natasha
McElhone.
If, by some miraculous twist of fortune, you have
not fallen victim to the advertising for "The Truman Show",
and have not had its premise revealed to you, then set this review aside
and see the film at once, prepared to view it with an advantage over all
other members of the audience.
Those of you who are still reading, who already
know about what should have been an amazing twist, see the film twice --
the first time to get your bearings, and the second to appreciate its power.
It is one of the best films ever made about the dangers of mass-media, by
far surpassing "Natural Born Killers" and earning comparison with such impacting
works as "Talk Radio" and "A Cry in the Dark".
It does not open in this manner. Set in the gleeful
town of Seahaven, the film seems like a take on the sitcom mentality: Every
house has a white picket fence, neighbours greet each other with joy, there's
beautiful weather every day, and people suddenly break out with shamelessly
phoney product placement. But our hero, Jimmy Stewart lookalike Truman Burbank
(Jim Carrey), dreams of much more, and is sick of the problems he keeps dwelling
over -- such as the amazing insincerity of his wife Meryl (Laura Linney),
the fact that his buddy Marlon (Noah Emmerich) seems like a walking beer
commercial, and the painful memory of his elusive one true love, who he believes
scarpered to Fiji when he was in college.
But Truman can't leave -- and here's the plot
point that isn't revealed until the 1-hour mark, that should have come as
The Big Twist: As everyone knows but him, his life is a meticulously-run
television show which he is trapped inside, broadcast around the world 24
hours a day by over-zealous creator Christof (Ed Harris). The Truman Show
gets high ratings, watched by those sick members of the public who we see
today as those addicted to "reality shows" and other examples of scummy trash
television. All the people in Truman's life are actors, and Seahaven is a
huge sound stage containing thousands of hidden cameras.
The film is filled to the brim with details,
intricately constructed by writer Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir.
On my second viewing of "The Truman Show" I noticed that they have, at times
even in throwaway lines, covered every query we could have about the particulars
and the mechanics of this situation. And the odd camera movements often give
us a very real, very creepy sense of voyeurism.
It's also very creepy to watch the moronic fans
who leer at Truman's banal world and life constantly, oblivious to the
realisation that this aimless time-filler is spying on a victim, a caged
animal, and the project built around Truman is a moral
disgrace.
Carrey, who has never had a leading film role
anything like this, carries the movie breathtakingly well. Convincing us
as having the innocent charm and bewilderment of the only True-Man in his
nightmare environment, we root for him as he gradually finds the truth and
attempts to struggle out of it. His Truman, with his simple desire for freedom,
represents a warrior of the human spirit over human greed, and we watch The
Truman Show in the same way as Sylvia, a character played by Natasha McElhone
-- not because we're salivating over the show's soap operatics, but because
we are concerned about the serious implications of the show's
outcome.
Niccol's screenplay has amazing dimension, and
aside from carefully envisioning a stunningly detailed vision of the near
future down to the smallest rivet, he gives us believable characters. The
supporting cast are so skilled, and their roles are written so well, that
in ways so subtle we are never conscious of them, they successfully pull
off the difficult task of being actors playing actors: In character, in their
controversial roles... and out of character, talking about themselves. And
in a situation where what should be deplored is accepted, by some even approved
and rewarded, Harris finds the right note as the enigmatic Christof, a
manipulative dictator who sincerely believes that he is a beneficial father
figure to Truman. His lines are spot-on in reflecting this, the justifications
he gives for his work are exactly the sort of things his real-life counterparts
say.
Peter Biziou's cinematography and Dennis Gassner's
production design create an over-exuberant world which is intentionally ludicrous
and yet still not laughable -- they give us a Fisher-Price exterior which
is obviously just a chilling mask for a Kafkaesque nightmare. You'd think
that both of these men were experienced at designing strange fantasy realms,
such is the mastery of the work, but it's a stark contrast to Biziou's earlier
projects, which include the ultra-realistic lensings of films such as Louis
Malle's "Damage" and Alan Parker's "Mississippi Burning".
The terrific minimalist soundtrack is spiritually
moving, with an original score by Burkhard Dallwitz seamlessly mixed with
some excellent excerpts of Philip Glass's acclaimed work on other films.
(Minimalist God Glass has an ironic cameo as a lowly keyboard artist under
Christof.)
Know that I shook in my seat whilst watching "The
Truman Show", trying to escape from its terrifying suggestions. Yet if one
glances on the surface, it appears to be pure entertainment, simple and goofy
enough. The fact that the writer and director can inspire such powerful emotion
with this appearance is an important comment on their storytelling abilities.
They have made a masterpiece which is doubly chilling -- firstly when we
consider a world gone so mad that it would allow The Truman Show, and then
again when we realise that we're living in it. The hypocritical TV viewers
who we see cry for Truman in the film are the tabloid-buyers we saw cry for
Princess Diana. The cruel manipulation of mass opinion was inflicted upon
Lindy Chamberlain and Louise Woodward. And a real Truman Burbank is out there
somewhere, just waiting to be born.
COPYRIGHT© 1998 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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