The Truman Show (1998) Review: A Prison Made of Sunshine

Is The Truman Show worth watching?

Yes. The Truman Show is a sharp, funny and surprisingly poignant fable about a man who slowly discovers his life is a performance, and it looks more prescient every year. Peter Weir and screenwriter Andrew Niccol build a perfect little world and then let us watch it crack, while Jim Carrey proves he can be as affecting as he is manic. The reservation is that its satire of media is broad and a little gentle, and some of the supporting characters exist mainly to serve the concept.

What is The Truman Show about?

The Truman Show introduces Truman Burbank (Carrey), a cheerful insurance salesman in the immaculate seaside town of Seahaven. He has a loving wife, Meryl (Laura Linney), a loyal best friend, Marlon (Noah Emmerich), and a life so pleasant it looks like an advert.

It is, more or less. Without knowing it, Truman has been the star of a round-the-clock television show since birth, broadcast to an enormous audience and overseen by its creator, Christof (Ed Harris). Everyone around him is an actor, and the town is a vast set. The film begins as small glitches start to make Truman wonder why his world seems so carefully arranged. Weir directs Niccol’s original screenplay; the American film is in English, runs a trim 103 minutes and is rated PG.

A perfect town that feels quietly wrong

Weir’s greatest achievement is tone. Seahaven is bright, clean and pastel, and the film treats it with the affection of a sitcom while planting constant signs that something is off: extras walking in patterns, product placements slipped into conversation, a sky that sometimes behaves oddly. The humour and the unease come from the same source, and Weir balances them with an elegance that few directors could manage.

The film also plays with how we watch. Weir cuts regularly to hidden-camera angles, with vignetted edges and awkward vantage points, reminding us that we are part of Truman’s audience. Cutaways to viewers around the world, glued to their screens, broaden the satire and make it uncomfortably clear who keeps this kind of show going.

Carrey’s comic timing, turned toward sadness

Casting Carrey, then best known for rubber-faced comedies, was a masterstroke. His natural brightness makes Truman’s performative cheerfulness convincing, and his comic instincts make the early scenes very funny. But as doubt creeps in, Carrey dials down the mugging and lets real fear and loneliness show. The result is one of his finest performances, and it gives the film emotional weight that a lesser concept piece would lack.

Ed Harris is superb as Christof, a soft-spoken creator whose affection for Truman is inseparable from his desire to control him. Laura Linney is very funny as Meryl, whose smile never quite reaches her eyes, and Noah Emmerich brings unexpected sadness to Marlon, a friend whose loyalty is part of the job.

Where the fable stays a little too safe

For all its intelligence, The Truman Show is not especially biting about the media industry it satirises. The show’s logistics are left largely unexplored, and the audience cutaways, while effective, are broad and sentimental. The romance at the heart of Truman’s longing, involving a woman played by Natascha McElhone, is thinly sketched. These are forgivable limits for a fable, but they keep the film from the savagery of the best media satires.

Who should watch The Truman Show?

This is a good pick for almost anyone, from teenagers discovering it for the first time to adults who have not revisited it since the 1990s. It is rated PG, with mild language and emotional intensity rather than violence, and at under two hours it moves briskly. It blends comedy and drama in a way that suits a family movie night with older children and makes for great conversation afterwards.

If it works for you, try these next:

• Birdman, another comedy-drama about performance, fame and a man’s unstable sense of reality.
• Modern Times, Chaplin’s great satire of an ordinary man trapped inside a system far bigger than he is.

The verdict

The Truman Show is a clever, humane satire that has aged remarkably well in an age of social media and surveillance. Its critique is gentle and some characters are thin, but Weir’s control of tone and Carrey’s affecting performance make it a modern classic worth revisiting.

Rating: 4/5