The Truman Show
Director: Peter Weir.
Starring: Jim Carey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich.
A movie like The Truman Show is really hard to come to terms with. For a start, there's all the hype associated with it. I like to go into a movie with very little idea of what's about to unfold, making it possible for me to judge a movie on its content alone. With the publicity machine and the positive word of mouth that is associated with this movie, it's close to impossible to do that. Consequently, I'm heading in to The Truman Show with a whole lot of baggage, not the least of which is the notion that everyone else loves it. Second, it's one of these movies where it's not clear whether the film maker is being clever, or whether the reviewers/audience members are reading something that's not there. I'll come back to this point. Given these concerns, my capsule summary would be that it's quite enjoyable but not all that it's billed to be.
This is yet again a movie advertised to be Jim Carey in his first serious role. While Carey does a competent job with the part of Truman (Truman, for goodness sake; has no-one heard of subtlety?), it is by no means the stand-out performance of the year. His part is still a caricature: an over-the-top, hammed-up performance. His appearance in Cable Guy was streets ahead of what's happening here.
As I try to discuss the performances, I come up against the point I made in the opening paragraph: what is this movie really trying to do? I think there are a couple of possible ways to read it.
i) Is it meant to be about a real person who was caught up in this artificial, televised world? We are shown many details that seem to suggest that this is the case: intricacies of how this event is staged are revealed, to a level that is meant to convince us that it is feasible; certain actors (Noah Emmerlich as the best friend for example) play their parts in the television show as if it is meant to be real; the shots of the general public again suggest that this is a real phenomenon.
Ultimately, however, The Truman Show falls well short. The whole concept just doesn't bear close scrutiny under this premise. Firstly, how exciting would it really be to televise someone's life 24 hours a day? Even if it was deliberately filled with choreographed events, there's just way too much mundaneness to fill the screen. We're told that people leave the television on at night to sleep while Truman is sleeping, a reasonable premise only if you're in the same time zone. Ok, that takes care of the night but what about travelling to work every day, sitting at work for eight hours, showering, eating? How often would that be interesting and are people really going to be watching continuously, just in case something interesting happens? And don't even think about what the actor who is playing the wife is called upon to do. Also, (spoiler following but if you don't realise that this is going to happen in the movie, then there are a lot of Hollywood movies out there that you can enjoy), if you had spent all your life living in what you thought was reality only to find out that it was a television set, don't you think you'd have some sort of pretty serious nervous breakdown? Add to this Laura Linney shamelessly over-acting in the role of Truman's wife and Jim Carey hamming it up and it just can't be real.
ii) Clearly it must be an allegory. Let's treat the pieces that suggested realism as merely attempts to make the allegory plausible, so that we can't just brush the film away as something that could never happen. Then what's the film trying to say about human existence? We watch too much television? We need to question our reality more? The media is manipulative? What is life but a series of events, orchestrated by some unseen conductor, where we are not even the players but rather the instruments?
Well, The Truman Show could be saying any of these things. This is where it all comes down to interpretation. Is the movie being so clever that it's not forcing its message down the viewer's throat, touching on all these issues but ultimately leaving it up to the audience to do some work and take away what they can from it? Or, is it simply a collection of interesting ideas rather than a coherent allegory, thrown together to make up the mandatory 2 hours? Much as I'm a huge fan of Peter Weir, I fear it is the latter rather than the former. (For an movie that fits into the former category, see Peter Weir's Fearless.)
The Truman Show seems to be one of those movies created from an idea thrown around at lunch time. The concept is not a particularly original one: since philosophising began, people have postulated the idea that everything around us is a figment of our imagination. All I can know is myself: what proof do I have of other people's existence? Well, I'll take it on trust that the reality I see is reality. Alright, let's take this concept. Suppose the reality I see isn't reality. Wouldn't that make a cool movie? But what can I really do with this concept now? One of two things: either the protagonist discovers that the reality isn't real or he doesn't. Well, it's not much of a movie if he doesn't, so he'd better discover it.
With whom are we meant to identify in this movie? Truman? Perhaps, but I think instead the intention is that we identify with the viewers of the television show. In this way, we can watch what's going on with a knowing complicity: Truman should question reality but we know we live in the real world. Ultimately perhaps this is the point of the movie: are we really any better off in our real world, watching Truman, than Truman is in his orchestrated one? If so, again there are problems. The choice of the television viewers seems disingenuous, to say the least. Are they meant to represent the ordinary people? Two bar-maids, two security guards, a slob in a bathtub and two old crones, none of whom are tremendously appealing. They're really there for their comic potential, rather than for their representation of the everyperson. We never get to know them well; in face, we never really get to know anyone well, not even Truman. As such, I'm not drawn in to this movie, and I don't really care too much about the plight of anyone. In this position, it's hard to get caught up in the allegory. The media manipulates? Not here. I don't care about anyone. Question my reality? My life's not like anyone's in the movie so that doesn't apply. There's a conductor manipulating the events of my life? If so, my only choice seems to be to leave. It seems that as an allegory, The Truman Show is not a roaring success either.
All this suggests that I'm slamming The Truman Show, but that's not my intention. All I'm saying is that it's a bit confusing, since different actors seem to think they're in different movies. It's also a bit disappointing since there seem to be some interesting directions the movie could have chosen to go but didn't. Overall, however, The Truman Show is mostly a moderately interesting movie with nowhere near the depth that it's purported to have.
Rating: CR
Ratings System
HD: High Distinction D: Distinction CR: Credit P: Pass CP: Conceded Pass F: Fail
nikki http://www.cs.su.oz.au/~nikki/m_r/Intro.html -- Nicole Lesley email: nikki@cs.usyd.edu.au "The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun" The Beautiful South, One God.
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