Isn't it scary when media predicts the future? For every Back to the Future 2, which was wildly optimistic about 2015 (where's my hoverboard?), there's a Nostradamus-level prediction, usually from The Simpsons. Well perhaps the most accurate depiction of all comes from a movie that turns 25 this year, and it's leaving Netflix on the 1st of January
The Truman Show is a seminal comedy that depicts the ultimate form of reality TV, a man's entire life. Jim Carrey plays the titular Truman, a man who has lived his whole life as the unwitting star of his own show. Everyone around him is an actor, sponsors follow him everywhere, and his entire life is a lie. His home is a giant dome, even with a false sky. It's the ultimate form of impostor syndrome, and it's all completely true. Spooky on an existential level.
In the outside world, Truman is the world's biggest celebrity. People sit in bars and watch the show like live sport, and have done for nearly thirty years while director Christof (Ed Harris) sits on a moon base controlling the feed. See any parallels with modern-day life (cough 'social media' cough)?
If this all sounds a bit too Black Mirror for a laugh, you'd probably be right, but Jim Carrey is a comedy great for a reason. This is arguably his finest performance (along with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), he's funny and sad all at the same time.
Already experiencing a wanderlust for the outside world (he's desperate to go to Fiji to find a lost love) he sees his late father, who was 'written out' years ago, and questions inevitably arise.
And of course, we are all watching at home, much like the audience for The Truman Show. It's super clever. This is an excellent family movie too, and children in their early teens (when I first saw the movie) could really have their eyes opened by its message. With a 94% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Although this movie is leaving, Netflix has finished 2023 strongly with a superb Natalie Portman-led drama headlining its December arrivals. But make time for the Truman Show Please. And if I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night.
