The Truman Show

On Alex's advice, I watched the The Truman Show a few days ago. It's about a guy who doesn't know it at first, but later realises that he has lived his entire life in a reality TV show, which is streamed 24 hours around the world. Every person he has met is an actor playing a role and every place he has been to has been within a giant television studio. I found it an oddly emotional film which left quite an impression afterwards. It was very unsettling to see a person trapped in an artificial world, and there's always a feeling of something sinister hiding behind the film's appearance of a light comedy, especially in its first half.

I thought it was interesting that this film was originally written as a brooding sci-fi thriller kind of movie. Only after Peter Weir signed on, he decided to make the film a bit lighter and cast Jim Carrey in the main role. This was a pretty good idea because it gives a kind of surreal atmosphere to the film which patches up its otherwise incredulous plot. If the film took on a more serious tone then it would have been quite hard to believe or get stuck into.

It's hard to say what the movie is about. All at once it's a criticism of voyeuristic media, a questioning of reality and a story about escape. It's the last one that really made me like this movie. I can't quite explain why but I really felt for this Truman guy as he was constantly lied to and trapped.