EDtv ***
rated PG-13 starring Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Ellen DeGeneres, Woody Harrelson, Martin Landau, Sally Kirkland, Rob Reiner, Dennis Hopper, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, Adam Goldberg written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel based on the screenplay for LOUIS 19, LE ROI DES ONDES by Emile Gaudreault and Sylvie Bouchard directed by Ron Howard
Would you ever want a camera crew following you around 24 hours a day, filming everything you do? If you gave any thought at all to it, my guess is you'd say no. But Ed Kearney (Matthew McConaughey) in Ron Howard's comedy EDtv doesn't give that much thought to anything.
Ed is a thirtysomething video store clerk who gets pushed into the national spotlight when he agrees to star in a show called TrueTV, in which a film crew would follow him around 24 hours a day. His brother, Ray (Woody Harrelson, who could pass for McConaughey's brother in real life), loves the idea because he can get free publicity for his new gym. Ray's girlfriend Shari (a very good Jenna Elfman) finds out that Ray is cheating on her when Ed and his cameras go to visit him, and she realizes that it was Ed she wanted all along. But camera-shy Shari can't stand all the attention she's getting and comes across as a bitch on the show (according to 71% of USA Today readers). Along with Ed, we also find out hidden secrets about his family. And when Shari ditches Ed and the cameras and moves away, the dimwitted Ed realizes that the show has turned his life into a claustrophobic mess. One show executive (Ellen DeGeneres) decides then to give the show some excitement by sending out a woman (Elizabeth Hurley) to seduce Ed. By then, Ed is a national phenomenon, and a few thousand people wait outside the woman's apartment to cheer Ed on. When the night turns into a mess, Ed finally confronts head studio executive (Rob Reiner) and demands to be set free. But then the executive reminds him of the contract he signed that says that he can be filmed for as long as the studio would like to film him. Then the film takes a funny satirical twist as Ed tries to get his simple life back to normal.
EDtv is not nearly as significant as the film that it will be compared to time and time again, THE TRUMAN SHOW. In the few times that I saw THE TRUMAN SHOW, I actually dismissed it as another overrated Hollywood attempt at greatness. But EDtv actually made me see what made THE TRUMAN SHOW so special. It had a social significance and portrayed Truman's world so satirically well. I'm not saying, though, that EDtv is a bad movie. Infact, I may have enjoyed it more than THE TRUMAN SHOW. It is funny, smart and entertaining, and it doesn't leave as many unanswered questions as THE TRUMAN SHOW. But sometimes the film gets lost, often forgetting what it's there to do. To prove (like THE TRUMAN SHOW) that television, above all, is just a bunch of crap.
a review by Akiva Gottlieb, The Teenage Movie Critic akiva@excite.com http://www.angelfire.com/mo/film watch me on TBS' "Dinner And A Movie" May 21, 8:05pm EST
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