The Truman Show

The Truman Show (PG)
Director: David Weir

Although the story seems farfetched, it isn't long into this film before you start to believe it's possible. A 'perfect' town staffed with actors in a giant bubble dome, with thousands of hidden cameras, all filming the life of the one man - Truman Burbank - who isn't an actor, and accepts this artificial world as real.
His whole life from birth is shown 24 hours a day to fascinated audiences throughout the world, for whom this living docu-soap is the staff of life. You start to believe it's possible, because all the elements are already present in much popular television. Ordinary people being filmed in situ at shopping centres, or on cruise ships, have been elevated to superstardom. It is now possible to watch the life of at least one person 24 hours a day on the internet.
The step to making such a drama with an unaware subject suddenly seems small.
The morality of The Truman Show is ostensibly what the film is about: flicking from the reactions of viewers around the world to the various events that lead to the end. Some are genuinely involved with him as a person, others relate to him as many do to imaginary characters from Eastenders or Coronation Street - seemingly unable to separate truth from fiction. The final scene shows two security guards, who, after witnessing the amazing denoument, simply reach for the TV guide to find out what else is on. As a critique of television as voyeurism, and the immorality of the way the medium pokes into people's lives, it has much to say.
But there are darker sides to the story. The film revolves around how Truman discovers that his world is not the world. The show's producer, enigmatically named Christoph, views himself as the benign creator of Truman and his world.
When the penny finally drops and Truman sets sail across the ocean, the 'creator', using weather programmes built into the dome, tries to force him back, and even kill him, before relenting. In a booming theophany, he speaks to him from the moon (where the control room is!), and offers him the choice: life in the perfect world he has created for him, or the 'freedom' of the outside world with all its dangers and imperfections.

Rewriting Genesis

It is hard not to suppose that the writers had a rewriting of Genesis in mind. Although Christoph interprets his own motives as loving and caring, we are in no doubt that his thinking is flawed, and his regime repressive for Truman. The audience in the cinema actually cheered when he opened the door to leave.
This is humanism presented in its most attractive form: we left the garden of a repressive God to become who we truly are - brave adventurous spirits who search for and discover the truth. This is a message strangely at odds with the portrayal of a world which gets its vicarious kicks from addiction to soaps.
This is a fascinating, well-made, well acted, funny and thought-provoking film. There is no swearing or sex - the PG rating is simply because of the adult themes it portrays. A great film to show to a youth group or as a conversation-starter with adults.

Tim Thornborough

© Evangelicals Now - December 1998
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