"We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented"
I recently read Ed Sikov’s Film Studies: An Introduction, and one early point he makes is that everything we see in cinema, even the most vérité and naturalistic scenario, is, to some extent, constructed. Everything seen and heard is placed in front of us for a specific reason. Film is a “generous” medium, absorbing whatever light and motion appears in front of the camera; but whatever we see has been selected by its creator to be that which we, the audience, observe.
The Truman Show weaponizes that truth about its medium to tell a gripping story about one man (one character, really) questioning his own reality and agency. Is his own life a generous medium, or is it curated by an editor and director? Or, perhaps, like cinema, it is both? This is a fascinating premise that grows deeper and richer the more you watch it and think about it, like peeling layers off an onion.
One layer is a media satire that predicted the reality TV boom that was just on the horizon in 1998. It has “real life as entertainment” as a hook just like Big Brother and Jersey Shore. But The Truman Show is more insightful than just predicting the trend; it preemptively reveals why reality TV was so insidious and addictive. This is a movie about the commoditization of the human experience, about the absurdities of turning every basic life event into a broader social transaction. And so ultimately, I think The Truman Show has even more to say about a different cultural phenomenon: it honestly feels like a sharper critique of social media than anything else.
Another key layer of the film’s success is the film’s biblical imagery. Truman (the true man) lives on a Garden of Eden-esque island, where a booming voice from above determines his fate. He faces an apocalyptic storm on an ark. He chooses knowledge above innocence and, when his time comes, ascends to the clouds.
And then, at the very core, there’s the most important layer of all, which is that this is a corker of a good story, well-acted and -told. It’s full of human drama, composed of fun cinematic stuff like forbidden romance and secret escapes and a hero’s struggle for self-actualization. Jim Carrey plays a man right on the verge of losing his mind perfectly (in part because we know he has that insanity in his bones from other characters he’s played). Laura Linney and Noah Emmerich shine as his fake on-screen companions, both artificial and exhausted by the eternal facade they’ve helped build.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for high-concept movies that cast a comic actor in a dramatic role for a supernatural or speculative scenario (see: Groundhog Day and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but I think The Truman Show is a masterpiece.
- Review Series: 2009 Top 100
Is It Good?
Masterpiece: Tour De Good (8/8)
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