A ★★★★★ review of The Truman Show (1998) (2024)

With a fascinating and, frankly, unsettling premise, The Truman Show offers a satirical social commentary, that is equal parts humorous and exhilarating.

The Truman Show is an extreme take on celebrity culture, the consumption of media, the advancement of technology, and consumerism. It is a film of questions; moral questions, ethical questions, existential questions. It makes us reflect on our consumption of media, viewing the content we consume from a different angle. The creative variety of camera angles and set-ups throughout the film, challenge our idea of what is fiction and what is reality. We are aware that we are watching a film, a narrative film, yet the characters in this film, are, in essence, watching something similar, but in the knowledge that Truman is a real person. The cutting to different cameras, different shots, makes us question the core of cinematic language and expression. We watch films, fictional realities, over and over again. We know that the characters aren’t real, yet they are constructed, their world and their story is curated for our consumption, and the camera cuts. What makes these films different from those watching the constructed reality of Truman?

The Truman Show is an exploration of the search for autonomy in a controlled society. We are presented with two worlds; Truman’s constructed town, and the ‘real’ world. Neither of these worlds are free. The world is captivated by Truman’s fake reality, held hostage by the television show they cannot tear their eyes away from, buying into product placement and merchandise, and supplying money to the capitalist powers at play. On the surface, Truman’s world is the controlled one. Of course, it is controlled, but the world outside of his world, is just as controlled and manipulated as Truman’s. There is no freedom. We think we are free, but we are not. Truman’s world is simply a controlled experiment, that the rest of the world has bought into. Unfortunately for Truman, he’s not going to find the freedom he searches for once he leaves his town; he will become trapped in another world, one just as controlled. Truman is just a representation of the individual trying to survive in capitalist society.

This film creates an exhilarating dynamic between viewer and subject, one that inherently invites questioning and dissection, one that feels unethical, but undoubtably thrilling. It’s haunting in ways that its tone doesn’t suggest on the surface, a subtle horror film. Our autonomy is something valuable, but what if we don’t have the control we think we do? That is scary in ways that cannot be measured.