What happens when you mix Ozzie and Harriet and I Love Lucy with Brave New World and 1984? You get The Truman Show.
It's hard to be specific in a review without giving away much of what makes The Truman Show such a good movie. To be fair to those who haven't seen it and also haven’t already heard too much about it, we must speak in generalities and deal in specifics only where it won't ruin the surprises this excellent movie has in store.
Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, an ordinary Joe working in insurance who figures that his life is pretty idyllic. He has a good job, a nice house, and a beautiful wife. Yet, he feels he is missing something, so he begins to dig a little deeper than he has previously – certainly deeper than those around him. In his quest to find out more about himself and his life, Truman digs into some fascinating material.
The Truman Show is a wonderful surprise for a number of reasons. First, it presents a picture of dystopia that is not simply a brilliant satire on media manipulation, but even more interesting, also a satire on our duplicity in the matter. The film doesn’t pander or point fingers, but rather implicates all of us in the problem, and therefore its solution. Furthermore, Seahaven (Truman's hometown) is Weir's pot-shot at the burgeoning growth of ‘safe’ walled communities in America, artificial ‘biospheres’ that battered, paranoid middle class and upper middle class people sometimes flee to in search of security.
While it’s a comedy, there is no lack of substance to The Truman Show. The film asks us a number of important, challenging questions. These include questions about our attraction to metaphorical car wrecks, and how we tend to place our desire for security ahead of our desire for freedom. Weir and screenwriter Andrew Niccol also probe our willingness (even need) to be manipulated, our sheep mentality. And the film dares us to look at all these issues honestly.
It is Carrey’s unexpectedly mature performance, perhaps a breakthrough performance, that elevates The Truman Show to greatness. He takes Truman on a journey from mild, gnawing discontent to a later melancholy desperation without once resorting to any of his trademark maniacal posturing. And the film is vastly better as a result.
A deliciously vicious and intelligent satire. Jim Carrey is great as the man caught in the middle and Ed Harris is suitably evil as his tormentor.- Dan Jardine
