Okay, most people (probably including you) think this is a shitty, shitty movie that completely deserved its commercial failure. I used to think the same way. But now I am a changed man. I recognise the this film for what it truly is: One of the best of modern times.
Alright, so it stars Jim Carrey. But he never puts the words “alrighty” and “then” together here, and that’s gotta count for something, right? At least he’s trying. Yeah, I’ll admit he’s a crap actor, and if they had have cast John Cusack or Steve Buscemi as Truman the whole film probably would have imploded with sheer magnificence; but as you get into the film you realise that ol’ Jim isn’t the star here at all. No, it is someone by the name of Peter Weir.
The director of this film – and others such as Dead Poets’ Society – Weir is the manipulator behind the scenes just like the character Christof in the film. He controls Carrey like a muppet (a $100 million muppet, but a muppet none-the-less), making Carrey’s performance seem above average. However, it is Weir that truly comes shining through.
Another thing I really liked was the whole voyeurism theme of the film. Very much connected with a lot of the ideas George Orwell put forward in his novel ‘1984’, it shows society at an extreme, with everyone living life through someone else; peeking in on someone else’s life so that they themselves may live. Also carried across is the world of utter paranoia and hopelessness the protagonist lives in; and in both their main fear (that they are being watched) turns out to be horribly true.
Ironically, the very things that this film, and (to a slightly lesser extent) ‘1984’ were protesting against have turned out to be completely true. The constant surveillance of people for profit (and mind control), the complete and utter invasion of people’s privacy, the cheapening of people’s real emotions into ready-to-consume soap star ones – all of these are carried out in the most recent spate of ‘reality TV’ shows like ‘Big Brother’ (which acknowledges the link to Orwell… The author must be turning in his grave), ‘Survivor’ and ‘Popstars’.
Oh but wait, we aren’t watching these programmes for the cheap perverse thrill it gives us are we? No, we’re “studying the human psyche”. Yup. That and the titties.
Here's an essay I did for school last year. It got me pretty good marks, despite the fact that it has no conclusion...
