I, personally, have never understood what people love so much about reality TV. It has gotten the worst reputation nowadays, yet is extremely popular. But for the worst reputation, you look at things like The Hills, Laguna Beach, and especially Jersey Shore and say that it doesn't deserve it. My main question is: "Who the fuck cares about these people. Their lives are not interesting in any way yet we want to watch them and cross-examine every part of their lives and them doing disgusting things while being highly intoxicated". This is one of my full-level rants that can last up to 45 minutes, but this is not a rant about reality TV, this is a review for The Truman Show, one of the greatest movies of all time and what I think is Jim Carrey's best role to date. It has a terrific premise, terrific performances, delightful humour, and thought-provoking drama.
Truman Burbank's entire life is a lie. He has thought since birth that he was an ordinary guy, living an ordinary life in an ordinary 50's-esque town with an ordinary wife. However, his life has been a reality show, namely the Truman Show, the most popular reality show in the universe. All the people in Truman's world are in on it, including his "wife" Meryl (Laura Linney), his "mother" Angela (Holland Taylor) and his "best friend" Marlon (Noah Emmerich). For thirty years, Truman has had no suspicions, but has had a desire to leave the island that the creator of the show will go to the ends of the earth to stifle, including killing his "father" in a windstorm to instill fear in Truman from leaving the island.
The whole premise of the movie and what leads to the rather interesting climax is that Truman starts to notice that things don't quite add up and he realizes that his life is a lie and tries to get out, which is the climax. I won't give the rest away, but all I have to say is that this is a wonderful creative premise that is told beautifully with a very creative funny screenplay. It was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and for good reason because the dialogue was funny, but not in an overtly goofy way like some of Carrey's other (still great) works. Its also very inspirational and we want to see Truman succeed and get into the real world. We also want to see him reunite with his true love Sylvia, who told him once that it was a lie and promptly got kicked off the show.
The characterization is also wonderful and the performances match it perfectly. I personally think that Jim Carrey should have been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but hey, it was the nineties and its too late now. Despite being snubbed that particular year, he gave a wonderful performance that was a step in a different direction for him in terms of being typecast in comedy. While he was definitely the best actor in the movie, the film features some great performances from Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Ed Harris, and Holland Taylor as characters and also actors playing the characters. All in all, the performances were good, so I will wrap this up.
The Truman Show is in my opinion, one of the greatest movies of all time and one of my new favourite movies of all time. Jim Carrey gives the performance of a lifetime and everything about this movie is just perfect. That's right, this is a perfect movie, in my honest opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. This is my new favourite Jim Carrey movie and it proves that he can dial down the goofy (as awesome and skilled the goofy is) and give truly powerful Oscar-worthy performances. If you haven't seen it, stop wasting your time and go and see it.
