The Truman Show (1998)

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

First things first, thank you Aaron, for requesting this review! I first saw The Truman Show (1998) years ago on my own time. I thought it was an incredibly interesting film. The premise was amazing and the acting was uniquely spectacular. After receiving the request, I decided to watch the film again. I'm glad I did!

Released in 1998, The Truman Show stars Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, and Ed Harris. It details the unique story of Truman Burbank (Carrey), an insurance salesman living on Seahaven Island. He has a relatively repetitive and mundane, but seemingly picture perfect life. He has a beautiful wife, Meryl (Linney), a nice house in a nice neighborhood, a good job, and a loving mother. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Truman, none of it is real.

You read that right, none of it is real. It isn't a big plot twist or anything, it's hardly considered a spoiler, considering it's stated at the very beginning of the film. Even the opening credits tell you the "real" actors names playing the characters that interact with Truman on a daily basis. No, this isn't some computer generated reality, this isn't a simulation. Not really. The island is a completely manufactured set, the people around Truman are actors, even his wife, best friend, Marlon (Emmerich), and his mother (Holland Taylor), who isn't really his mother. Truman was adopted before he was even born by a TV network who decided to make his entire life a television show. They never tell him this, though, and take great pains to hide this from him. Also, his life on the set is being broadcast to the world 24 hours a day. This has made Truman the most popular TV star in the world, with merchandice being sold of him and real life products being used in the show as product placement so that the show does not need to run commercials.

Truman's repetitive life begins to change on Day 10,909 of his life, when a studio light falls from the sky and crashes in front of his house. Truman's car radio comes up with an explanation for this; an aircraft began to shed parts while flying over Seahaven. Truman goes to work as generic piano music plays over the goings on of the town. The film continues as if the very beginning, where cast members, as well as the creator of the show, Christof (Harris), were interviewed and said that everything is fake, never happened, almost as if the film wants us to forget about what we saw, as they do to Truman later in the film. One thing that I noticed when watching the film a second time was when Truman runs into two identical twins on his way to work to talk to him about closing a deal. When they do this, one of the twins casually shoves him up against a wall. Right next to Truman is an advertisment for a brand of chicken. It made me realize that the shove was completely intentional. They want Truman's face to be associated with the brand in order for the brand to be properly advertised. When Truman gets to work, he gets on the phone to talk to someone about going to Fiji and finding an unknown woman by the name of either Lauren or Sylvia Garland. When he starts to talk about Fiji, a place he longs to go to, one of his coworkers gets his attention by showing him a newspaper that says that Seahaven was voted "The Best Place on Earth." This is a very subtle way of convincing Truman to not attempt to leave the island. There are so many more of these subtle hints and advertisments that are in the film that I want you to find!

Some other oddities of Truman's life is Meryl talking about products as if she is advertising them, again, advertising things in the world. This is not a subtle example, this is blatantly obvious. Another oddity is a malfunction where Truman sits on the beach, reminiscing about his father's death by drowning, causing him to be afraid of the water. As Truman sits, it begins raining, but only on him, as if he's taking a shower. He doesn't really question it, he is very amused by it, until it begins downpouring everywhere. The biggest oddity though, that is unexplainable, is the sudden reappearance of his father, who should be dead, on the street as a homeless man. He tries to talk to him, but the father is dragged off by two random people onto a bus, while numerous bizarre obstacles get in Truman's way. More bizarre things begin to happen, Truman hears people tracking his every move on his car radio and then he stumbles into a building where elevator doors open and people eating sandwiches in a room are on the other side. He is promptly thrown out.

Truman is first told directly about what is happening around him when he was in college. At the same time he met Meryl, he saw an attractive woman who disappeared when he met Meryl. He met the mysterious woman again at a library, where he saw that her name was Lauren Garland (Natascha McElhone). She quickly whisked him away to a beach where she tried to tell him about everything. She revealed that her name was actually Sylvia and that everything was a show, while a man in a car drove up, identifed himself as her father and told Truman that "Lauren" is schizophrenic. Her "father" says that they will be moving to Fiji. Truman never forgot about her and continues to keep her sweater that she left with him. Sylvia, having been removed from the show, began a group that demands that Truman be released from his confinement.

One detail that I picked up on in the film that is very disturbing to think about is how Truman seemingly has no privacy. The film never shows when Truman does intimate things, such as using the bathroom, showering, having sex with his wife, or jerking off. Even though it isn't shown or implied (with the exception of Meryl saying, repeatedly, that she wants to have a baby), I wondered, what does the cameras do during that time? Do they give him privacy even though they don't stop watching him? Or, god forbid, do they show that on live TV? This, and several other things, brought up numerous ethical questions about the show that aren't really explored in the film. Another ethical issue is the fact that the entire island population and crew are gaslighting Truman. They fake connections with him, make him think that something that is really isn't, and manipulate him into thinking that things aren't safe, using advertisments and television programs to dissuade Truman from attempting to leave.

Another ethical problem is the fact that the stated goal of The Truman Show is to give Truman free will to do whatever he wants and live out his life in the fake world, it is supposed to be natural. But the show doesn't do that. Instead, it picks who Truman falls in love with, shown after Meryl leaves the show and a new "love interest" takes her place, who his best friend is, and does its best to force Truman in the direction it wants. Truman does not really have free will. Even going so far as to reintroduce the "father" ((Brian Delate) who was "killed off" the show to make Truman afraid of open water) so that Truman feels compelled to stay, while Marlon blatantly lies to Truman about what happened, fed what to say by Christof through an earpiece, which everyone on the set has. The show manipulates Truman into doing things through trauma. At one point, after the elevator incident, Meryl tells Truman that there was an elevator accident that she needs to take care of. I realized that this is a subtle way of attempting to get Truman to stay away from elevators so that type of incident doesn't happen again.

Finally, the set, despite appearing immaculate, is flawed. Truman is somehow able to tap into the earpiece transmitter through his car radio, when the transmitter has to change frequencies, it lets out a loud sound that affects every single person in the town, cast members are put on an endless loop, which Truman figures out after making observations, and finally, the cast breakroom is right on the set in a very specific building. Why on earth would this be put in the middle of the set where Truman could easily stumble across it?

The Truman Show was a success and garnered three Academy Award nominations. It is a shame Jim Carrey was not nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, it was great! The acting is terrific. Some of the acting is purposefully wooden, to show how Truman's world is manufactured and controlled. Every actor, except for (mostly) Truman, is a puppet, being told what to say and what to do through an earpiece. Being able to be a bad actor in a film is a unique talent. The attention to detail, similar to the show in the film, is in depth and absolutely amazing. I spotted new things when I watched this film again! This film is so impactful that a psychological disorder was named after the film. All in all, The Truman Show is a detailed, so detailed that I haven't even covered all the bases of this film, amazing, well-acted, one-of-a-kind film that deserves the critical acclaim it received. I rate this film GREAT on the scale.