I just got done watching it and it doesn’t quite hold up. It’s still a great film but the tone is more comedic than I remember. In my memory, there was a build up of things going wrong and Truman beginning to notice the patterns of the extras around him leading up to his ‘father’ returning. At which point the backstory and setting are revealed in the interview with the director. I know the idea of The Truman Show wasn’t really a reveal but it could have heightened the tension in the beginning if it wasn’t shown right away.
This probably less the movie not being what it could be and more my own views of reality changing over time. I’m sure the first time I saw the movie I thought it was funny that Truman was living in a manufactured sitcom world. Now I watch it and I can’t help but feel horror at his situation. To discover that everyone he knows; his best friend, his wife, his neighbors, his mom, the guy he buys his newspaper from, the woman that passes him on the street; is lying to him is horrific to me.
The Truman Show is a good movie but I would like to a version of it that abandons the tv viewer pov and keeps to Truman’s pov. The movie often switches to “hidden camera” shots to remind the viewer that Truman is always being watched but I feel like it distances me from Truman. It’s another layer between me and Truman when I want to be right there next to him. I want to see him find the cracks in his false world. I want to see him question his reality. I want to see everyone around him insist he’s crazy. I want to see him break out of his cage. And I want to see him pull back the curtain and show us the man pulling the strings of his world.