True Man Show. Review on The Truman Show

While some people search for realism in a movie/story, some search for a fantasy or a temporary dream which has nothing to do it reality. Whatever it is, a movie should have the content that can to touch the hearts of the audience. It could be achieved through a protagonist who is either a super hero serving as inspiration to people or a common man with whom people can identify with.

But unfortunately actors either tend to over dramatize emotions or tend to ignore it completely, that very few movies ever stand in the mind of the audience. What if a real, live, human story is given as entertainment? Will it be called exploitation of the human being whose life story is being given as entertainment? These are the questions that this movie raises and answers.

Detailed Story:

Everybody knows Truman of Sea Haven as ‘The Truman Show’ is the most watched TV show in the world. Truman was the unlucky child chosen for serving the world as an entertainment tool. With the exception of a few minutes of technical failures, every minute of his life is filmed and aired to the world television audience.

In spite of being the most watched guy, Truman is no hero; he is a mere mediocre, forced to live in an artificial world were all his acquaintances are paid actors. But the single most alluring factor of the show is that it showcases human life like never before. Though the events in Truman’s life are all pre planned and executed by the show’s conceptual director Christof (Ed Harris), he is real and most importantly his emotions are real.

Sea Haven is a gigantic set raised with the sole purpose of creating an artificial world in which Truman lives. His life Meryl, his best friend Marlon, his mother, his neighbors are all actors acting their parts, like all the other people who live in Sea Haven. Different kinds and types of cameras that come in different sizes are used to film him from every angle.

Truman works for an insurance company which never exists. Truman considers his job boring, but he had already given up his ambition of becoming a navigator ever since he saw his own father being washed away in the sea, when the both had gone for fishing. Worse than that, the incident had crushed the spirit of discovery and the ability to take risk out of Truman’s life Though a nice guy at heart, Truman is a push over who married Meryl against his own wish, just because his mother wanted him to. His wife wants a baby and would for ever keep hinting about it.

Christof plan succeeds till then, after that he is unable to make Truman yield to Meryl’s wish and thus provide entertainment to the voyeuristic audiences, for he resolutely pretends to ignore her cryptic clues. Emotion that cannot be controlled by Christof grows inside Truman, giving him the sudden strength and passion to look beyond Sea Haven. Christof is unable the erase the memory of Truman’s first love Sylvia (who as per Christof’s plan was the wrong girl), the memory of the stolen kiss after which her father had mysteriously rushed to the spot and had forcefully taken her to Fiji.

Truman secretly (according to him) contemplates about his long lost love. His life’s ambition slowly drifts towards the near impossible task of going to Fiji and finding her. He confides to a certain extent to Marlon his best pal whom Christof uses as a medium for manipulating Truman out of whim to travel outside Sea Haven.

Certain technical faults of the crew and blunders of the actors add to suspicions developing in Truman’s mind. For the first time, Truman begins to notice the strange things that happen in his life. One day Truman unexpectedly spots his dead father walking on the road. In a fraction second, after the two had just recognized each other, his father is hurriedly carried away from him by a few strange people who suddenly turn up from nowhere. Christof manages to rectify this technical fault by reintroducing his father back to Truman’s life with some brilliantly planned dramatic scenes.

Yet Truman awakens as strange doubts had already crept inside his head. He lets aside the unanswered questions and escapes from his house (away from the camera) with an intention of finding his way across the sea to Fiji Island. He fights against his fear of the sea and sails across the fury of the storm (artificially created by Chirstof), only to find out that what looked like the horizon was actually the boundary of sets of Sea Haven. But the door to the outside world is open.

Then, for the first time Truman hears the voice of Christof who tries his best to convince him out of going out. But Christof cannot imagine fighting against the human spirit that true love had instilled in Truman. Truman walks out to face the real world were the girl who acted as Sylvia is waiting for him.

Performance

Jim Carrey as Truman is excellent. He has brought out the various emotions experienced by the lead character in a manner that makes this movie a special favorite of mine. If he looks innocently funny in the beginning, it slowly turns to slight sorrow as he secretly searches for the remains of his lost love in his old trunk, and then in to mad confusion as he slowly begins to realize the odd things happening around him.

Ed Harris is yet another wonderful actor, who just lives the role of the crazy conceptual director. The movie doesn’t have any great, catchy dialogue and yet the combined performance of these two excellent actors had done the magic. Other characters do help in taking the movie forward, but the script is such that these two characters should shoulder the entire movie. Jim and Ed had done just that.Truman Show can be called Two man show. Jim and Ed.

Verdict

The story of the movie is certainly crazy or a bit far sighted. But it does mirror a lot about human emotions.

It is a must watch if you are Jim Carrey fan, for this movie is worthy enough to showcase his talent. A must watch for others too, for this one is such a wonderfully made crazy movie.