Ponty picked an impressive film for his #2 slot, one that I wish had made it onto my list (it may end up as an honorable mention!). The Truman Show (1998) is a powerful, surprisingly dark comedy about materialism, consumerism, and mass media, exploring what happens when we take reality television to its logical extreme. What’s fascinating is that this film largely predates reality television, outside of the trash that aired on MTV at the time.
I won’t spoil Ponty’s review (he considerately offers a spoiler alert, but if you haven’t managed to see this flick in the twenty-five years since its release, you’re way outside of the “no spoilers!” statute of limitations), but he touches upon many of the troubling implications of enslaving an unwitting human in an artificial world and broadcasting the results of this forbidden experiment to the world. I, too, wonder how Truman would live outside of the show; a part of me suspects he might go back to the only world he’s ever known, though I hope he never did.
With that, here is Ponty’s review of 1998’s The Truman Show:
