To return to the last page:
Use the "Back" button on your browser.
 To return to the main TV Barn page:
Click here or on the Barn logo.

The Truman Show (1998)
Showtime, 8:00-10:00 p.m. E T Wednesday
Full IMDb listing

You know as well as I do that the perks of living in a universe that you did not yourself create are, alas, few and far between. But among them is the ability to curse Fate.

Reflect on the parking situation in Cambridge, Mass., for instance. "Son of a bitch!" you re-iterate as you prepare to head down yet another century-old preset path of one-way, left-turn-only streets and become increasingly aware that your fruitless search for a space is not only taking its toll on your patience, but also on the resale value of your Chrysler as the odometer continues to spin. The way it should work is that society should do away with walk-in service completely, making everything from newsstands to dentists' offices into Drive-Thru operations. And if you were God, Thy Will'd Be Done and this would be a perfect world. But the last I checked, Adam Sandler is still making movies and Caffeine-Free Diet Coke is still sold freely and openly all over the planet. So while you're still stuck looking for a space, you can at least drive off with the smug satisfaction that at least this mess wasn't your screwup.

A perk of creating a fictional universe of your own is that you can think things through and get everything right. Which is why the holistic illogic and inconsistencies in "The Truman Show" ultimately kneecap the film. Okay, I concede that Truman Burbank's world was ambitiously conceived. Truman Burbank is a perfectly average man with an ordinary job in an unremarkable seaside town; the only thing about him that's worthy of comment is the fact that the town is just an enormous soundstage, and unbeknownst to him, Truman's entire life has been arranged as a TV show, and is broadcast 24 hours a day to worldwide audience that's become insatiable for the minutiae of his life.

His humdrum existence begins to fall apart after a series of technical malfunctions. A star falls from the heavens and falls to the ground as a stage light; Truman's car radio begins to pick up the chatter of the show's stage managers readying the office set for Truman's arrival and Truman becomes increasingly suspicious and paranoid about his reality. Honestly, this has incredible potential as one of those movies which you go see with friends just so you can have a thick conversation about it afterwards, fortified by just enough alcohol to encourage trippy speculation upon the nature of environment and how we're prepared to believe the world that's presented to us.

But I just couldn't buy it. The movie blatantly overlooks the fact that The Truman Show has been on the air for three decades now. Truman was born on-air. His entire world has been fabricated and stage-managed for him since Day One. Given all of that,

1) So this the first time there's been a technical snafu?

2) If Truman's hometown of "Seahaven" is an enormous set that's been built to stand for 30 years, why build false fronts? You'd only do that for a set you intend to tear down, and if Truman sees the back of it, you're screwed.

3) Why would they necessarily be screwed? If Truman has been fed this reality for 30 years, why not hedge your bets by feeding him a reality in which some buildings have no backsides? And again, is this the first time Truman has ever broken a routine? After 30 years, aren't the show's producers capable of handling a simple situation like Truman's turning left instead of right?

4) If, every day since birth, Truman's friends, family and co-workers have occasionally stopped in mid-conversation, held up a product, and extolled its virtues — these are the "commercials" that keep the show profitable — then why does Truman suddenly conclude that this is odd and suspicious behavior, instead of continuing to think that this is Just Something That Normal People Do?

Truman and "Seahaven" are invisibly overseen by the show's director, played by Ed "Always Good" Harris, in a massive control room staffed by people who observe Truman's every movement and word.

5) I'm spoiling a bit of the ending here, I suppose — but tell me how the hell Truman managed to tunnel out of his home and escape without the producers seeing him? Truman slips a beachball in his bed and activates a looped tape of his snoring, and then slips under the nearest camera's blind spots to make his getaway unnoticed. This indicates that Truman is aware that there are cameras tracking his every movement, and we just have to take that on faith. It also means that he knew exactly how many cameras were in the room and their exact areas of coverage, which is something else we have to take on faith. And when the actor playing his "best friend" follows his escape tunnel to its exit, he emerges in the backyard...about a foot away from another camera. So why the hell didn't that shot pick Truman up?

I was all too aware of these and "The Truman Show's" many logical problems, but I was also aware that Harris was being portrayed as a guy who'd been watching over Truman since the day of his on-camera birth. I have this childlike faith in filmmakers — well, OK, I wouldn't co-sign a car loan for one, but I'm at least willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as the movie rolls — so as more and more errors and inconsistencies kept popping up, I began looking forward to a revelation: that Harris had been planting intentional clues here and there for Truman to discover, perhaps with the intention of giving him the gift of greater awareness.

That might have been an interesting development. In a sense, Truman would have had the opportunity to "choose" his reality; would he merely shrug and conclude that these oddities are just part of life in Seahaven, or would he be motivated to search for a larger truth?

Of course, you have to review the movie that was made, and not the movie that you wish had been made. I wish they'd made that other one instead, because I wouldn't now have the itchy duty of saying that even a raccoon who'd received an accidental partial lobectomy from a wildly-thrown Lawn Dart would have spotted and fixed all of "The Truman Show's" logic problems by the screenplay's fourth draft.

Back to the Andy Ihnatko archive

Copyright ©1999 Andy Ihnatko. May not be redistributed without permission. Studio PR types wishing to send Andy tapes, promotional clothing, or high-end video gear in hopes of securing a positive review are advised that such efforts are futile, but they're free to try to determine how high Andy's price actually is. Mail any and all pelft to Box 279, Norwood, MA 02162. He could use a new subwoofer for his home-theater setup.

Search TV Barn