The Truman Show (1998) is a movie I have circled for a long time.  It is arguably one of the more familiar titles of the last thirty years, and I had yet to see it until tonight.  I have no good reason for you as to how this happened.  It is in the same vein as the random people you still occasionally encounter who have not seen Star Wars.  Yet, its notoriety is such that there are plenty of aspects from it with which I am familiar.  I have also known it to be used in various talks from people trying to use it to illustrate different philosophies.  I intend to do roughly the same thing, but first let me tell you about the story.

The star of The Truman Show is Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) and perhaps never was that statement more fitting.  He is the focus of a fictional reality television series that has been on the air for the entirety of his life, from the moment of his birth.  Later on, it is revealed that he had been the result of an “unwanted pregnancy,” so my Catholic brain went haywire with that statement for a moment.  Pro life!  Okay, on with the rest of the review.  We know that much of what has already been said is the case because we start with cast interviews.  There is Truman’s best friend Marlon, played by Louis Coltraine (Noah Emmerich).  We also see Truman’s wife Meryl Burbank, a role filled by Hannah Gill (Laura Linney).  I hope, if you have not seen this before, that this description helps you understand the proceedings.  Put differently, every aspect of Truman’s life is controlled by the director, Christof (Ed Harris), who likes to refer to himself as Truman’s creator.  His name and his place in Truman’s life is not lost on this Catholic.  Up until the age of thirty, Truman is unaware that he is being shown to millions of people around the world.  He goes about his business in the little seaside town called Seahaven.  He has never left its confines and is thus unaware that it is actually a gigantic soundstage, visible from space.  Steps have also been taken to ensure that he never wants to leave.  For example, the hamlet is at the end of a peninsula.  An episode during his childhood features him losing his father (Brian Delate) when their sailboat gets caught in a storm, and dad drowns after going overboard.  Further, Truman is constantly being told, mainly by the fake news outlets, about how dangerous is the world.  This is part of the reason he becomes an insurance salesman.  For the most part, he follows a daily routine, starting off each day by greeting his neighbors across the street.  Everything else unfolds like clockwork.  There are a few things amiss, though.  The first happens on the initial day we meet him when one of the soundstage’s lights falls from the sky in front of his house.  Another is a little more involved.  When he was in school, just as he first met Meryl, he also found Lauren Garland.  Her real name is Sylvia (Natascha McElhone), and despite the script calling for Truman to be with Meryl, Truman is more interested in Lauren.  As soon as he happens to have a moment with her, they run off to the beach where they kiss and she tries to tell him about what is really happening.  Before she can make sense of it to him, those responsible for the show drag her away, using an angry father as cover.  Despite this abrupt and odd ending, she left an impression on him and he never forgot her.  This is not the first time he has a strange interaction with somebody.  The event that really gets Truman wondering about reality is a surprise visit from Walter Moore.  He is the actor who played Truman’s father, and he sneaks onto the set to reunite with his fake son.  Before Truman’s long-lost dad could say anything, Walter is surrounded by a group of strangers and taken away.  Truman starts asking Meryl and his mom Angela Montclair, played by Alanis Montclair (Holland Taylor).  He is not satisfied by their answers.  With a few other out-of-the-ordinary happenings, like seeing into the backstage through a false elevator, he begins to question his surroundings.  It also reminds him of Lauren.  The last thing told to him before she had been taken away, never to be seen again, is that she was going to Fiji.  From that point on, Truman had endeavored to learn everything he could about the Pacific Island nation.  Now it is time to travel to the far away paradise.  Of course, the travel agent tells him there are no flights to Fiji for a month.  He next tries for something closer, like a bus trip to Chicago, but the actor who is the driver cannot get the vehicle to move.  He then waits for Meryl to come home from work, telling her to get into the car because they are going to take a trip together.  It ends with a supposed nuclear power plant problem as soon as they manage to make it over the bridge out of town, and Truman is forced to turn back.  After a dictated speech by Christof to Truman delivered by Marlon, things seem to return to normal.  Yet, after another day at work, Truman manages to fool the cameras watching him, sneaking out of his house in the middle of the night and getting into a sailboat reminiscent of the one in which is father supposedly died.  Once Christof discovers this, he tries everything he can to convince Truman to return, coming close to killing the star with another storm.  Truman perseveres, his vessel puncturing the side of the soundstage.  Before he can exit, Christof makes one last appeal to get Truman to stay.  Instead, Truman bows and exits.

It is quite the ending for The Truman Show.  Had I not known the outcome, I might have been as engrossed as the other audience members you see in the movie.  What the overall message says to my Catholic heart is that God is real.  I do not mean Christof.  At the same time, he factors into why I use this movie to make such a statement.  The director clearly makes himself out to be a god.  He attempts is to create a perfect world, and this is part of how he tries to convince Truman not to leave.  It is a powerful temptation.  How many of you can honestly say, if given the opportunity, that you would not choose your “cell,” as Christof describes the sound stage, if it had everything you could ever want?  The director goes so far as to claim that he knows Truman better than the star knows himself, thus being able to predict all of Truman’s actions.  The fact that Truman ultimately chooses to exercise his free will is why I say this movie is proof for the existence of God.  One of God’s most mysterious gifts to humanity is that which Truman uses in the end.  Despite centuries untold of philosophers purporting that they have plumbed the depths of the human condition, there are always going to be aspects of our existence beyond our understanding.  It is on these fringes that we find God.  Now, you can say that the Christian experience is only one interpretation of that quest.  To that I would counter, for the sake of brevity, the entirety of Church history.  Before I go too far into the theological deep end, to relate this all back to the film, we see Truman searching for those edges.  He gets to one, but knows there is more beyond that exit door.  Many a Christian have done a comparable act in their own search for God and entered into a deeper relationship with Him because, ultimately, free will is designed to lead you back to Him.  Yet, the choice is yours, just like Truman.  I pray you opt for God.

I could have said more in the specifically Catholic portion about how The Truman Show mentions the fact that its star was adopted.  Naysayers might point to the evilness of Truman being born as basically a corporate hostage and ask how such a life would be worth it.  I should think that Truman would definitely say his life has value.  The same can be said for watching this movie.