I feel like this was just a short documentary on Jim Carrey's real life.
"The Truman Show" shows the life of one man is exists as entertainment for the rest of the world. Everyday Truman Burbank lives his life and ignores dozens of hints that the world around him is not real. The world has been watching Truman's life from birth, 24 hours a day for 30 years. Truman is an overly cheery and quirky man who seems to have a spring attached to the bottoms of his feet with each step.
The film follows Truman's suspicions as he begins to accept that the idyllic world in which he is enveloped cannot be real and everyone that he meets on the street is a facet of the world that has been pulled over his eyes to blind him from the truth.
Woah. It just got pretty Matrixy in here. They both seem to pull from similar source material, namely the Allegory of the Cave, and both movies fail to grasp the lesson to be gained from this thousand year-old parable. At the end of the movie, Truman, with the help of his Morpheus character, a woman with whom he had a brief fling in college, finally reaches the point where he has escaped the all-seeing eyes of the cameras that surround him and finds the edge of the false world in which he has been imprisoned for his entire existence. Truman has been deeply programmed to fear water and boats, but overcomes this to sail to the painted blue wall that made up the sky above the horizon. He finds the exit leading to the real world and opens it as he is once again found by the cameras. Truman stands before the door.
The creator of Truman's world, Christof, speaks to Truman from the heavens of the domed reality and tells Truman that he is on TV but will not leave his world because he is afraid. Truman turns to the camera, giving his signature "Good afternoon, good evening, and good night" before exiting through the open door to Christof's surprise. As he leaves the television forever, the viewing world cheers, happy that Truman has finally found peace and has been given the chance to enter reality.
This is where "The Truman Show," like the Matrix before it, fails to grasp the Allegory of the Cave. One man has the possibility to leave the cave and become exposed to the outside world, but as soon as he attempts to release the rest of the cave dwellers from their prison, he finds that they are so deeply ingrained in the system that they cannot possibly accept any other truth. Truman was born into the cave, but he manages to bring the entire viewing audiences into the cave with him. The viewers are more involved with Truman's life than their own, and the film has multiple depictions of parents neglecting to feed children and obsessed fans wasting away in blithering happiness in front of the television set. I guess Ray Bradbury was right. When Truman exits the cave, he forces the viewing audience to exit with him, entering a new reality where Truman will no longer be on the screen to comfort them and entertain them at all hours. Mere minutes after Truman left the show, there would be riots in the streets. People unable to cope with such a drastic change to their lives would commit mass suicides and society as a whole would grind to a halt. We would like to believe that Truman would meet up with his lost lover, but in reality she would be killed before he could even reach her. Truman himself would be destroyed attempting to leave his cave, as his own life was an idyllic wonderland and reality is filled with millions of wild, destructive people thirsting for his blood.
Even if the hellish uprising of millions of distraught fans did not happen, Truman could never have a normal life. He would be swamped by thousands of fans every day who know every intimate detail of his life. Truman would either become a Messiah or a destroyer of worlds.
Despite the radical implications of the story, "The Truman Show" is an entertaining ride. I give it a "Watch It" for a unique story and great, over-the-top cheesy acting.
Disagree with me? Great! Let me know in the comments below.
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