YMMV / The Truman Show

• Accidental Aesop: If someone you know is having a breakdown, don't belittle their feelings or put your material needs above them, or you'll make their problems worse and drive them out of your life. Meryl choosing to do Product Placement in the middle of a serious conversation finally destroys her "relationship" with Truman. If Meryl had chosen to put Truman's mental health above the program's needs, or at least pretended to, she could've convinced him to stay in Seahaven.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Louis/Marlon just another one of Truman's captors, or does he — in stark contrast to his fellow actors — genuinely care about Truman and want to help him? While the movie provides little in the way of background for Louis and sheds no light on his motivations, his actor has suggested that Louis is deeply conflicted about what he's being asked to do and, as a result, suffers from substance abuse issues. Deleted scenes that show Louis reacting with slight bitterness to Christof's proposals for a 'spin-off' focusing on Truman's child ("So when Truman dies, we go back to the single-channel format, right?") and looking the other way for Truman after stumbling across him during his escape muddies the water further.
  • In the scene in which Truman is baring his heart to Marlon on the bridge and he begins to cry, is he crying at the words of support Marlon is telling him, or is he crying because he's already seen through the charade and now he knows that even his best friend is in on it?
  • There's a theory going around that Simeon (the TV engineer played by Paul Giamatti) is a deep-cover mole for the Free Truman Movement, and that he purposely did the things that made Truman start questioning his reality (the light falling, the rain mishap, the wonky radio transmission, the actor of his father managing to sneak on set and appear before Truman) so Truman could figure out what was going on and leave by his own free will. The fact that Simeon was goofing off in the Director's chair reading a newspaper before Christof came in at the start of the third act under the guise of letting his apprentice get some hands-on experience with the cameras and he didn't wake up Christof to tell him that Truman now was sleeping in the basement despite his direct orders to tell him immediately of unpredictable behavior adds to the theory.
    • The newspaper Simeon reads is open to the classified ads, and he's in the middle of teaching another employee how to operate the cameras, one of Simeon's normal tasks. Was he looking for a job because he's morally conflicted with the show?
  • Christof refuses to show Truman using the bathroom or having sex. Is this because he thinks Truman deserves at least some degree of privacy? Or is it because he's afraid showing him doing those things might get him in trouble with standards and practices?
  • Meryl's awkward product placement during Truman's breakdown, which only bewilders him more. Did she do it because she was forced to do it, however inappropriate (it was in the script and/or required by the sponsor), was she panicking so she fell back on what she did best, or both?
  • When Truman started crying upon seeing the dome: is it because his life being artificial is now one hundred percent confirmed? Is it because he realized everything was a lie, even down to the sky? Or is it simply because he thinks he won't be able to escape the dome?
  • Truman's final "good afternoon, good evening, and good night"—is it an Ironic Echo addressed to Christof, or is it more of a Meaningful Echo, ignoring Christof and addressing the audience?
• Angst? What Angst?: Truman spends much of the movie impacted by aquaphobia. In the third act, his last attempted escape is on a sailboat, over the "ocean." Truman got awfully brave pretty quick, given that this movie ostensibly takes place over the course of several days. Possibly justified, since by that point he'd seen through the charade and decided it was his only way out and the lesser of two evils. This is also after he'd realized that his "father's" death by drowning (the source of his fear) was faked.
• Award Snub: After winning a Golden Globe for this film, it was assumed that Jim Carrey would at least get an Academy Award nomination, but he didn't. Amazingly, it happened again the very next year. Just to put the former snub in perspective, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama is a virtual guarantee of an Oscar nomination at the very least. Carrey was only the fourth man it didn't happen for, and the last time it happened prior to him was in 1965. He was also the last such snubee, indicating that the Academy really just didn't want to nominate him. Between these snubs, and two to follow — for Man on the Moon the very next year and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which was nominated for Best Actress for Kate Winslet even as his role is of equal importance) a few years after that, poor Carrey has become an almost archetypal example of a comedic actor who cannot get credit for his dramatic abilities. Adding insult to injury, the 1998 Best Actor Oscar winner was Roberto Benigni — an actor primarily known for broad comedies — for the Dramedy Life Is Beautiful, generally seen as one of the Oscars' bigger mistakes in hindsight.
  • The film itself was one of the most acclaimed of 1998, yet failed to receive a Best Picture nom, despite getting nods for Peter Weir's direction and for the script.
  • Some see Ed Harris' Best Supporting Actor loss as this, although losing to the great James Coburn softens the blow.
• Awesome Music:
  • Father Kolbe's Preaching is a particularly good one.
  • Then there's the use of "Anthem" from Powaqqatsi and "Opening" from Mishima A Life In Four Chapters.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Truman leaves and gets to see the real world, but since his teachers and bosses were all actors, he has no actual education nor real job experience — so getting money for his dreams is still going to be a problem.^note Granted, some media giant would probably pay Truman a lot of money to act as their spokesperson and he certainly has a legal case to make against the show that could be quite lucrative There's also the fact he'll have no real friends or family (save for Sylvia), and as pointed out in the film, the real world can be cruel at times. But regardless, he's already shown bravery and daring, and even if his new life is at his throat, he's bound to create a real happy ending of his own someday, which ties into the film's themes.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • This scene, in which Christof hold a briefing for the actors, explaining why the network wants Truman to have a kid: they want to make that kid part of the Truman Show, with a two-channel format to chronicle both their lives. It features a very redeeming moment with Louis/Marlon who, with quiet disgust, asks Christof if they are going to go back to a one channel format when Truman dies. Christof briefly hesitates, and then deliberately doesn't answer Louis' question as he adjourns the meeting.
  • Another deleted scene which shows Marlon recognizing a disguised Truman and allowing him to escape, since it would've proven that someone genuinely cared for Truman.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Jim Carrey (Truman) and Noah Emmerich (Louis/Marlon) met on the set of this film and went on to become good friends in Real Life — just like their characters. In fact, Carrey has even called Emmerich his best friend. What makes this extra heartwarming is that Emmerich's character was the only actor on the show (other than Lauren/Sylvia) who did genuinely come to care for Truman — their friendship was one of the few things in Seahaven that was real.
• He Really Can Act: Jim Carrey really spread his wings as an actor here and showed he could do more than just "zany" roles. In fact, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert publicly apologized to Carrey on their show for saying that he would never have a career when Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was panned, although the latter had already turned the corner regarding Carrey with positive reviews for The Mask and Liar Liar.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Truman's first love, Lauren (a.k.a. Sylvia) is removed from the show when she tries to reveal the Broken Masquerade. Just before the footage of the event is played, one of the waitresses in the Truman-themed bar quips "They got rid of her, but they couldn't erase the memory."
  • While it satirized reality television right before the television market got saturated with it, The Joe Schmo Show in particular uses the same exact concept that the movie was making fun of.
  • The messianic allegories in the film are a lot funnier when you consider Bruce Almighty.
  • This is a late 1990s movie about a guy living a seemingly normal life, which all turns out to be a convoluted illusion. Guess what action movie with a sort-of similar premise came out the next year?
  • Jim Carrey's next starring vehicle, the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, is effectively an inversion of this movie in that it's about a media-savvy performer concocting elaborate fictions in the real world to leave everybody else questioning what he is and what he's up to. It could even be seen as a tweaked sequel in which Truman becomes a more benevolent, trickster version of Christof (the Pop of the Morning podcast discusses the similarities and differences between Kaufman and Christof). Indeed, one would think an early scene that depicts 8-year-old Kaufman believing there's a camera in his bedroom wall is a shout out to this film, but it's actually a real life detail! On top of that, Paul Giamatti, who plays one of Christof's underlings, plays Kaufman's co-conspirator Bob Zmuda in Man on the Moon.
• Jerkass Woobie: Meryl, Truman's wife. True, she's in on the secret and keeps deceiving Truman even when it's clear she's on the verge of a breakdown, but when you consider her Stepford Smiler personality, her backstory detailed in the script (she took the job so she wouldn't lose her acting career altogether, being a Former Child Star), and the fact that her job involves living with, being married to, and having sex with a man she doesn't love (and who doesn't love her, as everyone's aware that he pines for Sylvia, to the point of creating a collage of her on the back of a photo of Meryl), it's hard not to feel a little sorry for her. Not to mention, she's so clearly terrified when Truman threatens her in the kitchen, and breaks down sobbing when Marlon shows up to rescue her.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The biggest villain is Christof, since he's the creator of The Truman Show and the main manipulator of Truman's life, but he's also a cool, interesting and enigmatic character, and has some Anti-Villain trais. On the other hand, Truman's "parents" and his wife "Meryl" just come off as unlikable and uncaring people who only use Truman for their careers. Sans deleted scenes, Louis/Marlon isn't much better, taunting Truman as he makes his final escape. "Meryl" gets this treatment the most, due to her blatant Bitch in Sheep's Clothing obnoxiousness and having many scenes with Truman.
• Les Yay: Those two older ladies cuddled up on the couch watching The Truman Show all day. Adorable. If the film had been made a couple of decades later, the natural interpretation would be that they are a lesbian couple. In 1998, however, it was rare for a mainstream Hollywood movie to casually show a gay couple, and so we have to assume the nature of their relationship to be ambiguous at best.
• Love to Hate:
  • Meryl, mainly due to her feigning her relationship with Truman (even if she is just doing her job). It's part of why the whole "I'm being spontaneous" and "do something!" scenes are so satisfying to watch.
  • Christof, who may be reprehensible, but many still find him an example of Evil Is Cool due to how effectively creepy he is.
• Memetic Mutation: Truman's "What the hell are you talking about?" in response to his wife's blatant Product Placement about cocoa is a popular GIF on message boards. It got further resurgence thanks to Ozark, where Laura Linney plays an unhinged sociopath similar to Meryl, constantly feigning real emotions.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • The rise of Reality TV means a lot of TV executives walked out of the theaters and thought that it was a good idea. (Ultimately a subversion as most Reality Show stars know they are on TV.)
  • Conspiracy theorists. The film matches their worldview, making it easy to relate to Truman — he spots errors with the official story, realizes everybody in the world is actually hiding the truth and/or plotting against him, before discovering and beating a shadowy figure pulling all the strings behind the scenes. As such, some take the film's small-scale, poorly kept-together conspiracy as evidence their own, world-wide theory has to be correct because they, like Truman, "woke up" and saw past the illusion.
• Moral Event Horizon: Depending on who you ask, Christof had his when he had the idea for the show, when he faked the death of Truman's father in order to give the poor kid a crippling phobia about water, or when he capsized his boat and tried to drown him. One line stands out as particularly cold:
  Producer: For God's sake, Chris! The whole world is watching. We can't have him die in front of a live audience!
  Christof: He was born in front of a live audience.
• Not So Crazy Anymore: The entire premise. Let's just say that the idea of an ordinary person's life being broadcasted all over the world without their permission all for profit, and entertainment is no longer as absurd as it once was and is unfortunately now reality for some people.
• Older Than They Think: Believe it or not, the plot has its precursors, such as the Amazing Stories episode "Secret Cinema" (which itself was a remake of a 1966 short film by the same writer-director, and became the basis for a lawsuit against this film) and The Twilight Zone (1985) episode "Special Service".
• One-Scene Wonder: The fake bus driver. Out of all the extras, he seems to be the only one who shows genuine pity and remorse for denying Truman access to the outside world.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • The entire film is rife with this, particularly bad is when we see Truman's best friend, someone he has known since school, manipulating him and being fed lines by the director. Then there's the part where he's looking for Truman and has childish "hide-and-seek" lines delivered in sinister fashion.
  • More broadly, the fact that if you've seen this movie, you will wonder if your life could be a similar scenario for at least a passing moment, here and there.
  • The Truman Show delusion is a documented psychiatric condition, often afflicting those with schizophrenia. It is so-called because many who report the delusion specifically relate their lives to the film. This is different from gangstalking, where people think someone is monitoring their lives on hidden cameras.
• Retroactive Recognition: Paul Giamatti as one of the studio techs. Peter Krause is Truman's boss. Joel McKinnon Miller is a security guard and one of the show's avid viewers. Fans of The Americans will recognize a young Noah Emmerich as Truman's best friend Marlon.
• Song Association: People who saw the film's trailer in heavy rotation might never be able to listen to Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" without thinking of Truman's meticulously controlled artificial life. Hell, any film with comedic yet existentialist tones and themes have done so too, from W., to Wreck-It Ralph, to Downsizing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Sylvia is (as far as we know) the only person who has a problem with what Christof is doing to Truman. This gives her a unique relationship to Truman (given that apparently no one else is like this) with a lot of material for a great character, but she hardly has a presence in the film.
  • Walter, the actor playing Truman's father, managed to sneak onto the set. How he managed to get past the omnipresent security isn't shown^note He could've done this with the help of the Free Truman activists. And instead of being written as a remorseful man who has come to care for his TV son, he is instead written as a man who wants fame and money back.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Sylvia's apartment shows hints that there are activist groups in existence that want to free Truman. While the normal viewers are happy to see him escape, any actual activist groups trying to free him, maybe even infiltrating the show as part of this, are never brought up beyond the Sylvia scene and a montage of times various walk-ons have attempted to break the illusion for Truman during his life.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The audience is at least meant to feel some of Meryl's fear when Truman threatens her with a knife, but her gaslighting Truman beforehand and her only caring about "unprofessional working conditions" hinders the viewer to sympathize with her even when her life is in danger.
• Values Resonance:
  • There was a time when this movie's premise seemed outlandish. Now, with webcams and Reality TV, the degrading definitions of personal privacy, concurrently increasing concerns about online oversharing and parasocial relationships, and the commodification of personal data for marketing purposes, it seems much more plausible.
  • Truman's "wife" and "mom" are constantly pressuring him to have a kid, which Truman is reluctant to do since he realizes his marriage isn't working out. Nowadays, with rising living costs, many people are more inclined to side with Truman.
  • The internet brought the rise of parent blogs and family vloggers, which have drawn controversy for a number of reasons—namely that successful family-oriented YouTube channels can make a lot of money, usually because of audiences drawn in by the kids, but unlike child actors, there are no laws in place to ensure the kids will ever see a dime of the money they helped earn. There's also a lot of concern about how a kid being on camera for millions to see throughout their whole childhood can negatively affect their mental health, especially in the cases of more unscrupulous parents who film private, often embarrassing moments, and how being filmed so much can make kids open to predators and exploitation. All of these concerns are illustrated and explored throughout the movie; despite predating the concept by about a decade, The Truman Show is essentially a family channel taken to the most logical extreme. There have even been accusations of some family vloggers manufacturing or faking major life events and emergencies to get an audience's attention, just like Christof does. All this makes the message about everyone's right to privacy and to be their own person feel even more relevant.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Though in a different way than you'd normally expect. Truman is essentially an effects-less film, but dozens of little touches exist throughout, most notably the subtle altering of a skyline to make it match the Geodome's shape. Everything looks so right that you wouldn't notice it until you were looking for it... just as happens to Truman in-universe!
• The Woobie: Truman. By the end, he's an Iron Woobie.
  • It's hard not to feel bad for Louis Coltrane/Marlon, especially if you've seen the deleted scenes and are familiar with his backstory. Coltrane was a child actor barely old enough to go to school when he was cast as Truman's best friend (one suspects he didn't know what he was in for), and he's had to be in on this lie for almost his entire life. Not to mention that according to his actor the reason why his character is an alcoholic and has been in and out of rehab is because of the immense guilt he feels whenever he lies to Truman. Worse, he's also trapped in being used to sponsor beer products and as a result he's an addict unable to break out of his cycle of addiction.

---