The Truman Show

Let's get one thing out of the way here: this is, in every respect besides subject matter, a Hollywood movie. It has a bankable star (Jim Carrey, formerly the acknowledged master of talking out of one's ass on film), a semi-bankable second lead (Ed Harris, who I associate more with crazed military psychos [cf. "The Rock," for one] than prissy directors), a fair amount of FX (the list of stuntmen was much, much longer than it would seem to any reasonable human to be necessary for this film), a large budget (they cleared out an entire Carolinas town to make this movie in), and, unfortunately, an incredibly crude sense of realism and moral dialogue.

This is the main caveat. This movie has delivered a situation which is truly much more interesting to the sometimes intellectual such as myself than, say, the scenario to every other movie I've ever sent a review of to you all. This is a situation which could be used to make interesting moral commentary, have a dialogue about the necessity vs. cancerous nature of manufactured reality and its place in our lives, or discuss the very nature of the fantasy worlds we present ourselves with.

What we get is a prison break/mystery movie. There is never any discussion, there is never any doubt in the good-hearted viewer's mind that Reality, with the capital letter we like to think applies to anything universal, is superior to Truman's reality. The fact that we all immerse ourselves in constructed environments every single day of our lives is skipped over at best. Instead of commenting on themselves through their action, the viewers we are presented with simply comment on the action. They are ciphers and we are expected to follow their moral lead. Truman is being unfairly imprisoned! God, I hope he gets out! The efforts of those who try to unmask Truman's reality for him are presented in a blindingly positive light. Christof (the director/creator/jailer) has a command center worthy, in terms of dim lighting and vaguely intimidating technology, worthy of, well, "The Rock."

This movie does ask some provocative questions. Unfortunately, after the manner of Homer Simpson, it basically moons for rebuttal. Points against Truman's life being characterized as completely wrong are made in the most insipid way, so they are completely unconvincing. Points for are made by pretty, teary people, so they get extra moral bonus points in the Hollywood scheme. I was ready for something that would really inspire thought, and came out thinking "How manipulable do they think I am?"

You can sense relief in every single critic's reviews of this movie that Jim Carrey does not talk out of his ass in this movie, or beat himself up in a bathroom, or sing "Cuban Pete" or some such. As someone who liked Jim Carrey's earlier films, I am offended by this. In fact, Carrey's performance has been characterized as "restrained," and that's exactly what he seems to me for most of the film, only not in a good sense. Someone dialed down the volume. You can almost see him leaping for joy when he has a chance to whoop and holler as he is taking his wife out for a little drive through the sudden mysterious forest fires. I mean, he's okay in the rest of the movie, and he does have this certain effusive charm, but to me it seemed like nothing more than Mark McGwire trying to make himself into a high-average singles hitter. Of course, Jim Carrey's earlier comedies, with the first "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" movie being the apothesis of this, were essentially angry movies, and anger of any significant kind in this movie would force a real moral dialogue to take place at some point, and good Lord we can't have that.

Ed Harris' Christof is actually an extremely good casting choice from the movie's point of view, as it keeps the evil squarely in his court. No amount of beret-wearing and finger-touching-to-the-side-of-face can possibly disguise this man's essential military psychosis. Of course, if Christof could be empathized with, it would ruin the moral oversimplicity this movie works so hard to achieve. (BTW people have commented accurately on beat-me-over-the-head name symbolism in this movie, only I think people when they compare Christof to someone with two less letters in his otherwise identical name (especially when he refers to himself as "the Creator," and if there's not a capital letter in his voice when he says that then I've never heard a capital letter spoken) are missing that he can also be compared to my man Christo who makes the grand umbrella edifices in the wilderness and puts drapes on the Reichstag. Just a thought.)

You may say, "Lindemann, you let worse intellectual lapses than the ones this movie makes slide every day!" Well, yes, but it is trying harder. It's easy to try to do something badly and succeed, I know, and there's more honor in trying something hard and succeeding in part. But taking the big intellectual setup this movie delivers and managing to do absolutely nothing interesting with it besides have the main character escape without giving it second thoughts is like coming to the climax of "T2" and resolving it by having Ahnold and Robert Patrick go out for a brew.

Is this movie more intelligent than, say, "Firestorm"? Yes, a thousand times.

Did I enjoy it more? Hell no.

Believability: I don't have the heart to really get into this, only to say that there is no real reason for this movie to take place at this point in Truman's life, except that this is how old Jim Carrey looks. He could have started the machinations of finding everything out at age 18. Or 27. Or whenever. He had the motivation. He had the means. He's not terribly intelligent as portrayed in this movie, which is maybe their excuse. But there's no real reason for the technical failures of the set to

a) start right then; and

b) continue happening at a rate that must be unusual or Truman would have figured out something earlier.

Maybe the aliens from "ID4" were giving Christof's computers viruses to get us back.

Tension: Fairly high. This movie does in fact involve you emotionally to some degree.

Attractive Man Count: Jim Carrey is a 1, thank you. There's no one else to speak of.

Attractive Woman Count: I guess this is the proper place to note it, but viewers of both the sucky film "Deep Impact" and this film will notice that there is an Asian woman with a British-type accent named Una Damon in basically the same role in each film (that of media room technical support, running around on the phone and such). She's distractingly attractive. I hope she does not get ghettoized into this kind of role. She and others add up to 3.

Overall Grade: Let me note one more thing for you: This commentary on the nature of the reality with which we are presented and with which we present ourselves is a movie. And it uses the same emtional manipulations we are familiar with from TV--because they were all taken from the movies. When we enter the theater to escape reality, we are confronted by an alternative reality which tells us that alternative realities are inferior to the reality we left outside the friendly confines of AMC City Place at 1 AM. In effect, this movie is saying to me, "You wasted your $3.75 and your two hours when you could have been having real, unmanufactured adventures. Have a nice night."

I am personally offended by this. B-.

A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

How Jim Carrey could have talked out of his ass in "The Truman Show":

"Excuse me, I'd like to ass you a few questions about the nature of my televisual existence. Is it determined a priori or a posteriori? Because I'm really behind the curve here."

Or maybe not.

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