by David C. Terr

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Title: The Truman Show

Director: Peter Weir

Starring: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor.

Release Date: June 5, 1998

Running Time: 103 min

Genres: Drama, Sci-Fi

 

Commentary
The Truman Show is by far my favorite movie with Jim Carrey. Unlike most of his movies, which involve his insane style of humor, The Truman Show is much more serious. He does a great performance as Truman Burbank, a rather simple man whose life is made into a TV show since birth without his knowledge. His "wife" Meryl (Laura Linney) also delivers a great performance. I mainly enjoy the premise of the movie as well as how Truman deals with his staged life.

Plot Summary

• Introduction: Truman Burbank is born in a huge TV studio in the future, large enough to be seen from space, and his entire life becomes staged unknown to him but known to everyone else. His "father" is killed off in a boating accident when Truman is a child, whence he becomes afraid of the water. Nevertheless, Truman longs to travel, which often gets him into trouble as his world is limited. In college, Truman falls in love with "Lauren", who tries to tell him that his life is staged but gets taken away by her "father", who claims she's insane. He ends up marrying "Meryl" instead, but never forgets about "Lauren".
• Truman learns of his captivity: By Day 10,909, Truman begins to suspect that the world he lives in isn't real. He makes more and more desperate attempts to escape from it. First he tries to fly to Fiji, but can't get a ticket. Then he insists on taking a car trip with his wife to New Orleans, but gets stopped by a staged fire. Eventually, he ends up sneaking out of his house one morning and conquers his fear of water by sailing out to "sea" by himself. The set director tries to stop him by contolling the weather, staging a storm and almost killing him in the process, but in the end, Truman manages to find the edge of the set and walk out, much to the delight of many viewers.

Social Relevance
I think The Truman Show is a metaphor for many aspects of modern society. To a large extent, our lives are staged in the sense that we have a predictable routine. While Truman has what seems to be a good life, including a good job, an attractive wife, and many pleasant friends and associates, he longs for more variety and adventure. In a way, we're all captive to social norms, much like Truman. The human spirit requires variety and uncertainty in order to grow. We also need to know what's really out there.

Movie Clips

Here's the original movie trailer.

 

Here's another trailer.