“There was someone on the platform talking to the folks
About the TV god and all the pain that it invokes…”
Here’s another flick from the nineties, turning twenty-five this year, and also another I think stands the test of time—in more ways than you might expect. It’s also probably my favorite outing from Jim Carrey—perhaps holding up a bit better than Ace Ventura, here’s my take on The Truman Show.
Truman Burback is an affable young man living the dream in a pristine beachfront suburb where everything’s clean, everyone’s neighborly, everyone has somewhere to be…some would call it too good to be true. Truman, of course, doesn’t know any better, as he’s never been beyond the outskirts of Seahaven his whole life—and that’s something all too deliberate. From birth, his entire life has been micromanaged and filmed secretly on command of TV producer Christof (Ed Harris), pairing him with a wife very clearly in it for advertising checks (Laura Linney), and gaslighting him to hell and back to try and stymie any instinct to explore the world. It’s quite nightmarish the more you think on it—and yet the whole world is happy to tune in 24/7.
Carrey is as energetic as always—Robin Williams was considered for the role, but I think the choice they went with was a better one, with this Truman still having a sense of innocence yet still being young enough to question his existence. There’s, appropriately enough, many subtle details in the script and set to clue you in on what things might look behind the scenes—like Truman’s best friend (Noah Emmerich) feeling like the only ‘actor’ who genuinely cares for him, something made clear in extended scenes, or the very limited cell and computer technology in Seahaven...
And yet, despite the slightly creepy perfect whitebread neighborhood out of a fifties postcard, despite how staged it deliberately feels…there’s parts that give you a feel for why the Truman Show itself would have an appeal, with Carrey selling that easygoing and genuinely nice personality that would turn people away from the torrid tabloid tales of celebrities. At the same time, it’s that very aspect of him, exploited monstrously, that brings out the horrific nature of it all.
Of course, the illusion begins to fall apart, and Carrey finally lets out his characteristic scene-chewing near the end as he rages against the god of his world. This brings me of course to how the film resonates 25 years later—obviously, people draw comparisons to reality TV, which was a craze that this one actually predates a little bit. But it goes further than that—most reality shows didn’t focus so squarely on one single person going on his everyday life, which is something that actually we see more of in our constantly online realms of social media. We have ‘influencers’ whose every photoshoot is curated and presented as something real, giving people a fantasy to fix their eyes onto a screen for—we have people posting nearly their every waking moment onto whichever platform is du jour, and while they’re much more aware of what they’re doing, it’s often all as controlled as Seahaven is.
In many ways, a quarter of a century on, folks become both Truman and viewer, playing and selling dreamworlds for the screen. And when, as they often do, screens and realities blur, personas meld into people…well, at that point, you have to start thinking on what the ‘actual’ reality is for many. That’s what The Truman Show left me thinking on, and why it perhaps works more than ever now…
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