The Truman Show

Details

Ever been accused of living in your own dream world? Well, Truman Burbank certainly does. For almost thirty years every moment of his life has been secretly recorded by thousands of miniature cameras and broadcast non-stop to billions of people around the world.

Truman lives in the picturesque island town of Seahaven, has a beautiful wife called Meryl, a comfortable home, a steady job selling insurance and a best friend named Marlon. As far as Truman is concerned, there's nothing particularly unusual about his life.

Unfortunately, practically everything surrounding him is fake.

Seahaven is actually an enormous television set, the people living there are actors and even Truman's wife is merely playing a part. His entire existence has been constructed by television producer Christof, who has controlled Truman's environment since the day he was born.

However, after spending almost three decades inside the programme, cracks are beginning to appear in Truman's carefully controlled world. A stage light inexplicably falls from the sky, people around him occasionally behave strangely and interference on his car radio appears to describe his movements around town.

Most disturbing of all is the sudden reappearance of somebody Truman believes to be his dead father. Before he can discover what's happening, the man is rapidly bundled away by apparently innocent passers-by.

Truman begins questioning the world around him and remembers Lauren, a woman he met whilst at college. Although everybody attempted to convince him she was called Lauren Garland, she told Truman her real name was Sylvia and tried to reveal the truth about his life before being forcibly removed from Seahaven.

Unfortunately, escaping isn't going to be easy. From an early age Truman was deliberately given a fear of water when his television father apparently drowned during a boating accident. Since Seahaven is surrounded by water, that conveniently prevents him from travelling very far.

When Truman finally decides to leave town, increasingly ridiculous obstacles suddenly appear in his path. Traffic jams materialise from nowhere, buses mysteriously break down and roads are blocked by everything from forest fires to a supposed nuclear accident.

Even attempting to fly proves difficult, with every available flight apparently booked for months. The wonderfully reassuring travel posters depicting aircraft being struck by lightning don't exactly encourage him either.

As Truman's suspicions grow, Christof and his production team are forced to take increasingly desperate measures to keep their star safely inside Seahaven. Eventually Truman realises that the only way to discover the truth is to confront the one thing he's spent most of his life fearing. Water.

Picture & Sound

The picture is bright, crisp and extremely colourful. It's a gorgeous transfer and a shining example of DVD technology at work.

Seahaven's deliberately artificial appearance is particularly well suited to the format. Blue skies, immaculately maintained houses, perfectly green lawns and colourful costumes give the town an almost unnaturally pristine appearance, which is exactly what the film requires.

Detail is excellent throughout and there are no obvious compression problems to distract from the image. Flesh tones remain natural and black levels are convincing during the relatively limited number of darker sequences.

The unusual camera angles used to represent the hidden cameras inside Truman's world are also reproduced particularly well. At times we're looking at him through mirrors, dashboard cameras and various objects scattered around Seahaven, helping reinforce the feeling that practically nowhere in Truman's life is private.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is considerably more restrained than the picture, although that's hardly surprising for a film dominated by dialogue. Voices remain clear and firmly positioned in the centre channel, whilst the front speakers provide a pleasingly wide soundstage.

The surround channels are used effectively when required, particularly during Truman's various attempts to escape Seahaven. Ambient effects also help give the apparently perfect little town a convincing sense of space.

The main storm sequence is where the soundtrack really bursts into life. As Christof attempts to prevent Truman from escaping, the increasingly violent weather makes considerably greater use of the surrounds and low-frequency effects.

It's not the sort of soundtrack you'd use primarily to demonstrate a new surround system, but it complements the film extremely well and becomes suitably impressive when the story demands it.

Menu & Extras

The only real disappointment with this disc is the lack of extras. For such an unusual film there's an enormous amount that could have been explored, yet all we get are a couple of theatrical trailers.

That's particularly frustrating because the production itself must have provided plenty of material. A documentary examining the construction of Seahaven, the numerous hidden-camera positions and the enormous control room used by Christof would have been fascinating.

Likewise, interviews with director Peter Weir, Jim Carrey and Ed Harris discussing the unusual premise and the creation of Truman's artificial world would have given the disc considerably more substance.

The cleverly animated menus are at least a welcome addition and demonstrate that somebody put some thought into the presentation. Unfortunately, once you get beyond them there's virtually nothing to explore.

Shame. It could have been so much more.

Overall

The film is a clever parody of the old sixties American television shows where product placement was more or less the main aim of the programme. Truman is constantly tempted with wonderful goods and gadgets whilst the actors around him manoeuvre themselves into position so products and advertising hoardings can be clearly seen.

Laura Linney's Meryl is particularly funny in this respect. In the middle of an ordinary conversation she'll suddenly produce some household product, hold it towards one of the hidden cameras and start enthusiastically describing its benefits as though she's wandered into an advertisement.

To Truman it's increasingly bizarre behaviour. To the television audience watching his life, it's simply another commercial.

That's one of the cleverest ideas in the film. Since The Truman Show runs twenty-four hours a day without conventional advertising breaks, Truman's entire world effectively becomes the commercial. The clothes he wears, the food he eats and practically everything inside his home can be sold to the audience.

It's funny, but there's also something distinctly uncomfortable about the whole idea.

Everybody in Truman's life is lying to him. His wife is an actress. His best friend is an actor. His mother is an actress. Even the death of his father was simply another storyline created to prevent him from leaving the programme.

Yet billions of people apparently regard this as perfectly acceptable because Truman's life provides them with entertainment.

Christof certainly doesn't see himself as a villain. If anything, he believes he's given Truman something better than the real world. Seahaven is safe, clean and carefully controlled, whilst Christof can remove practically anything capable of seriously hurting his star.

The problem is that Truman has never been given any choice in the matter.

Ed Harris is excellent because he doesn't play Christof as some cackling television executive rubbing his hands together over the ratings. He's calm, intelligent and appears to genuinely care about Truman. That almost makes him more disturbing.

He's spent nearly thirty years controlling another human being's life and has convinced himself that doing so is an act of love.

Peter Weir also has great fun showing us how the programme is produced. Actors suddenly break character when Truman does something unexpected, streets can be emptied or filled at a moment's notice and an entire control room watches helplessly whenever their star decides not to follow the script.

Some of the funniest moments occur when Truman starts deliberately testing his surroundings. Once he realises that something isn't quite right, the apparently ordinary routines of Seahaven suddenly become ridiculously obvious.

There's a particularly good sequence where Truman predicts exactly which people and vehicles are going to appear outside his house. What previously looked like an ordinary suburban street is revealed to be little more than a carefully choreographed television set repeating the same movements around him.

But the biggest surprise is Jim Carrey.

The Truman Show demonstrates that Carrey can be taken seriously. There's barely a rubber-faced expression or ridiculous noise to be found throughout the film, and anyone expecting another Ace Ventura is going to be in for quite a surprise. That's not to say he isn't funny. There are plenty of comedy moments, but they come from Truman himself and the absurdity of his situation rather than Carrey simply pulling faces at the camera.

More importantly, he makes Truman enormously likeable. There's an innocence about the character that makes the deception surrounding him seem increasingly cruel. He trusts his wife, his family and his best friend because he's never had any reason to believe that absolutely everybody around him might be lying.

Noah Emmerich is particularly effective as Marlon. The scene where Truman confides his suspicions to his oldest friend is uncomfortable precisely because Marlon appears so sincere. Truman believes every word he's hearing, whilst we know somebody else is effectively feeding Marlon his lines.

Natascha McElhone's Sylvia provides the one genuine relationship Truman has experienced. Unlike everybody else, she attempted to tell him the truth, and his inability to forget her becomes one of the things that eventually drives him to question Seahaven.

The film also manages the difficult trick of becoming increasingly dramatic without abandoning its comedy. Truman's attempts to escape are often hilarious, particularly as the production team desperately invents increasingly implausible reasons why he can't leave town.

Eventually, though, the joke stops being quite so funny as when Truman finally takes to the water, Christof is faced with the uncomfortable reality that maintaining control of his television programme may actually require him to kill its star.

The resulting storm is probably the film's most dramatic sequence and Carrey handles it superbly. By this stage Truman isn't simply trying to leave Seahaven; he's effectively fighting the person who has controlled every aspect of his existence since birth.

I won't spoil exactly how that confrontation ends, because anyone who hasn't seen the film deserves to experience it without knowing what's coming. What I will say is that it provides an extremely satisfying conclusion.

It's also worth remembering just how unusual this film is. There are elements of comedy, drama, fantasy and satire, yet it never comfortably fits into any one of them.

Most importantly, The Truman Show shows a completely different side to Jim Carrey. After films such as Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Liar Liar, it would have been very easy for him to continue relying on the manic comedy that made him a star. Instead he proves he's capable of carrying something considerably more thoughtful. It's certainly his best outing to date and the critical acclaim is thoroughly deserved.

The DVD itself is something of a missed opportunity. The picture is superb and the Dolby Digital soundtrack does everything required of it, but the almost complete absence of supplementary material is disappointing for a film with so much going on behind the scenes. Still, a sparse DVD isn't enough to undermine such a good film.

Clever, funny, occasionally unsettling and featuring a genuinely excellent performance from Jim Carrey, The Truman Show is well worth adding to the collection.

And just remember: the next time you pick your nose or scratch your arse, the world might be watching...

Special features

• Theatrical Trailers