Truman Burbank, Jim Carrey, is Mister Average, and lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary American town called Seahaven; he has an ordinary job in the office of an insurance company; he has an ordinary wife called Meryl, Laura Linney; and ordinary friends and neighbours. It`s true that there are a couple of clouds on Truman`s horizon; he has a fear of water as a result of a long-ago boating accident in which his father drowned; and, since Seahaven is on an island, this fear restricts his movements. Also, he has a secret yearning for Lauren, Natasha McElhone, whom he had loved as a student. Apart from these minor worries, all`s well in Truman`s world - except that, unknown to him, it`s all fake. Truman is the innocent star of his own TV show, a show conceived by brilliant tv producer Christof, Ed Harris. Nothing is really what it seems to be... The Truman Show deals with some pretty weighty ideas around the central theme of media manipulation, but Peter Weir`s inspiring direction ensures that New Zealand writer Andrew Niccol`s clever screenplay never gets bogged down in semantics. The casting of Jim Carrey was a masterstroke: Weir controls the ebullient comic as strictly as he controlled Robin Williams in Dead Poet`s Society, and the result is a brilliant, and touching performance unlike anything Carrey has done before. Ed Harris is exceptional, too, as the mastermind behind The Truman Show. It`s heartening that a film as intelligent and as entertaining as this should have been such a tremendous success in America over the last few months, because it means that Weir should have many more opportunities to weave his considerable magic on future projects. Incidentally, the star of his first Australian feature, The Cars That Ate Paris, Terri Camilleri, crops up as one of the devoted viewers of The Truman Show - he`s the one in the bathtub.
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