The Truman Show: The Irony of Acting in a Reality TV Show

Within the first five minutes of The Truman Show, the viewer knows that Truman Burbank is the star of a reality show that has chronicled his daily life from his birth. The film could easily end at that realization. The audience knows that Truman is filmed 24 hours a day on a reality show that pushes the limits of morality and ethics. They also know that he is unaware of the thousands upon thousands of cameras that are stashed within objects, such as his car radio and his bathroom mirror, which he uses on a daily basis. 

The audience even knows by way of a stage light that seems to fall from the sky in front of his home one morning that the perfect, content image he has of his life and the small town he resides in will begin to crumble beginning at that moment. Within those first five minutes of the film, the Truman Show could be written off as a trite story of one’s man journey through the preconceived realization of the violation of that man’s privacy. 

However, a predictable storyline is not the case. Positive reviews from both Rob Blackwelder from SPLICEDWire and Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as my own positive experience with the film, conclude that Jim Carrey’s superb, fresh rendering of Truman makes the Truman Show an honest reaction to one man’s growth from a character in a TV show to a human being wanting to find his place in the world. 

Jim Carrey’s excellent, thoughtful portrayal of Truman Burbank provokes curiosity in the viewer. Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle says of Carrey, “He's funny and engaging, but he also brings a touching believability to this far-fetched tale of a man whose trust and innocence were violated from the day he was born.” The familiarity he brings to this physically distant character drives Truman’s journey that will finally break him of the world he has known all his life. Carrey, at the opening of the film, takes on the role of the perfect neighbor and hard worker at a nine to five job. He lives in the small, quiet coastal town of Seahaven.