After making his fortune in slapstick comedy, goofy Jim Carrey's career took a more dramatic turn in "The Truman Show". Carrey is Truman Burbank, an orphan whose entire life has been on television. He lives on an enormous film set studded with hidden cameras. His fabricated family, friends, neighbors and coworkers are all played by actors. Only Truman, who is now thirty years old, hasn't been let in on the gag. He is unaware that his existence is a dramatic creation, or that he is an international television star with millions of voyeurs watching his every facial expression. Fortunately, the film doesn't address what is televised when Truman goes to the bathroom.
Truman's product placing, artificially cheerful wife is Meryl (Laura Linney). His pushy, intrusive mother is played by Holland Taylor. His reflective best friend, seemingly always toting a six pack, is Marlon (Noah Emmerich). Christof (Ed Harris) is the television show's producer, oddly resembling a religious cult leader and shamelessly manipulating Truman's ever-televised life.
Truman slowly begins to realize that life is not quite what it seems. Perhaps it's because his father (Brian Delate) has come back from his watery grave as a homeless man. Perhaps it's because a girl from his past (Natascha McElhone) shouted at him that his entire life has been fake. Maybe it's the bizarre events that keep occurring, or the ridiculous attempts by others to explain them away. Although his attempts to escape his cocooned environment are parried at every turn, that only makes Truman more determined to leave.
"The Truman Show" is often funny, in a dark sort of way. My favorite scene has Truman fleeing yet another staged event into the woods, chased by men costumed in radiation suits. Linney is very good as well. Given her character's empty emotions and constant prodding and pandering, no wonder she and Truman deep down despise each other.
The problem here seems to be the original but overbaked premise of a lifetime unwittingly crafted as drama. The patent phoniness of the cast members is ingrained into their characters, and prevents them from being able to express real emotions. While Truman is 'real', he's also paranoid and suspicious, drowning out Carrey's usual whimsical, outrageous onscreen persona. Various people are shown watching 'The Truman Show' as if mesmerized, even when only a test pattern is displayed. Get a life! The moment of Truman's exit from the set is played up as dramatically as Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon.
Peter Weir, the Australian director behind a number of successful 1980s projects ("Witness", "Dead Poets Society", "Gallipoli"), received an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Andrew Niccol ("Gattaca") co-produced and wrote the script, which was also Oscar nominated. Ed Harris was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Perhaps Academy members were reminded of creepy producers that they had worked under. But the commercial and critical success of "The Truman Show" is only partially deserved. (61/100)
Comic actor Jim Carrey plays it mostly straight for this smart satire from director Peter Weir DEAD POETS SOCIETY. The life of Truman Burbank Carrey h...More at Family Video
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