The Truman Show came out in 1998, twenty-eight years ago this year. On Douban, nearly two million people have rated it at 9.4; on IMDb it holds an 8.2, and its Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 94% fresh. Before writing this piece I went through its box office, its awards history, its plot details, and even the psychiatric literature attached to it, item by item. The numbers hold up. The prophecy holds up better.
Start with the timing. In June 1998 the film opened in theaters, telling the story of a child broadcast to the entire world from the moment of his birth, a town built entirely out of sets, a life scripted for thirty years. Reality television did not exist that year; the premise sounded like science fiction. Fifteen months later, the Dutch show Big Brother premiered: strangers locked in a house and filmed around the clock, the format sold to dozens of countries. Then came talent shows, livestream shopping, and short-video culture for everyone. The absurdist play director Peter Weir made in 1998 took the world more than twenty years to catch up with.
The world inside the show calls itself Seahaven. The broadcast is on day 10,909; Truman is thirty years old, and his entire life is one program. More than five thousand cameras hide throughout the town. In the middle of an argument, his wife suddenly recites a product-placement ad; when his best friend comforts him, he turns his beer label toward the lens. The extras enter and exit with clockwork precision. One day a studio light falls out of the “sky,” its tag reading SIRIUS. Truman’s fear of water is scripted too: as a boy, his father “drowned” in front of him, an event the director arranged so Truman would never want to leave the island.
The show’s creator, Christof, is played by Ed Harris. His control room is built inside the fake moon hanging in the studio’s painted sky. He believes he is protecting Truman, and he says to the camera a line that has been quoted ever since: “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. It’s as simple as that.” When Truman finally sails out to sea, Christof whips up a storm to stop him. Truman ties himself to the mast and shouts that to stop him, Christof will have to kill him.
Truman is played by Jim Carrey. Carrey had become the king of comedy with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask; this time he dialed the exaggeration down. At the 1999 Golden Globes he won Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama; Ed Harris took Best Supporting Actor, and the film added a third Globe for Best Original Score. The Oscars gave it three nominations, including Best Director and Best Supporting Actor, and it went home empty-handed, a point people still bring up. Critic Roger Ebert gave it a full four stars, said the balance of comedy and drama was exactly right, praised Carrey’s performance, and compared Truman to Forrest Gump.
The film also holds a record no other film has: it made its way into psychiatry. Around 2008, psychiatrist Joel Gold and his brother, neuroscientist Ian Gold, named a delusion “the Truman Show delusion.” Patients are convinced that their life is a reality show, that cameras are filming their every move. Three of the first five patients Joel Gold treated described their condition through this film; he has since encountered similar cases by the hundreds. Very few films in history have left their name attached to an illness.
The film’s cruelest stroke is saved for the people watching it. Inside the movie, the whole world watches Truman’s life: a man in the bathtub who won’t get out, security guards in a duty room watching on shift. Truman bows, turns around, and walks out the door; the show ends. Two guards stare at the darkened screen, ask what else is on, and change the channel. Thirty years of a life, consumed in five seconds. The warning is aimed at us, on this side of the screen. Today everyone livestreams their own life; a social-media photo grid is a camera position, the comment section is the audience seating, and Seahaven lost its walls long ago.
At the end of the film, the bow of Truman’s boat breaks through the wall painted with blue sky, and he follows the wall to the exit. Christof makes one last appeal: the world outside is just as full of lies, but here, he says, you have nothing to fear. Truman turns, bows, and says, “In case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!” He steps into the darkness beyond the door, and the film never shows what is on the other side. In 1998 that read like the ending of a fable. It looks more and more like the beginning.