Review of The Truman Show (1998) by Stuart K — 19 Jun 2012

Peter Weir was very picky with what Hollywood offered him after Fearless (1993), but when he got Andrew Niccol's dark sci-fi script, he saw perfect potential, but he made it light where Niccol's script was dark, and he made it an arty, light film, but with a dark satirical edge.

Little would Weir know that he would create a premonition of things to come in the next decade, but it's brilliantly made with a brilliant lead performance. Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives on the island town of Seahaven, he works in insurance and has a loving wife in Meryl (Laura Linney), however Truman's life has been filmed and broadcast 24 hours a day to a worldwide audience, and Seahaven is a set built in a massive dome, and everyone he knows are actors.

Shortly before his 30th birthday, Truman begins to doubt the world he lives in, from hearing his movements on the way to work being read out by the crew over the radio, his wife blatantly advertising products at random moments and everything is the same every day.

Truman then makes a bid to escape from Seahaven, even though he's scared of the water, and the shows creator Christof (Ed Harris) tries everything to try and keep him within Seahaven. It's a beautiful film, with some brilliant surveillance type cinematography by Peter Biziou, but it's also a thought-provoking film, as reality TV is everywhere now.

But, while most sci-fi films are set in the future, this has an old-fashioned look and feel to it, it's science fact at it's scariest. Carrey is brilliant, showing talent he'd never displayed before, this is one of the best films of the 1990's, and it's still relevant today.