Revisiting classics: The Truman Show is a sharp and thought-provoking exploration of reality, free will, and surveillance

🍿 Do you ever feel like you’re being watched? The Truman Show brings that fear to life. For this month’s edition of Classics Revisited, we’re looking back at one of the most original and enduring films of the late ‘90s — and one that proves particularly relevant today: The Truman Show. Directed by Peter Weir and released in 1998, the movie forces viewers to examine how heavily social media and technology have influenced our modern reality.

The Plot: Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), an ordinary salesman, becomes suspicious of the world he lives in as a series of strange occurrences makes him realise not everything is as it seems. Everything in his reality, including his home, wife, and job, is soon revealed to be part of an elaborate movie set designed to capture his every move and produce it for people in the real world.

What we liked: The film sets an eerie tone by focusing on Truman’s paranoia, not through typical means, such as ominous music or imagery, but instead by cultivating an artificial feel throughout the set. The lighting, colors, and music’s inorganic feel left viewers strangely unsettled, allowing them to truly sympathize with Truman, putting into question the role of media and surveillance in today’s world.

While some may feel the filmmakers drew their characters in overly stark terms — purely good or purely evil — we’d argue the film’s handling of its central dilemma is remarkable and ahead of its time. In an era consumed by the logic of advertising and branding, reality itself becomes a desperate attempt to commodify human beings, their lives, and their relationships in a way that edges toward enslavement.

While Christof (Ed Harris) — the director and architect of the whole (in-universe) show — might read as straightforward villainy, the writing gives him more depth than that. He’s a man suffering from a god complex, genuinely convinced he has served Truman by shielding him from the real world: keeping him captive in this artificial one, under his watch and care, protected from the ugliness, danger, and tragedy of life outside.

The verdict: The secret to The Truman Show’s endurance is that it never loses sight of the human dimension at the heart of its ambitious premise. Technically a comedy and a science fiction film, it delivers a sharp critique and a devastating reading of the world we actually live in. Nearly 28 years on, the film has outrun its own moment — its targets now broader than ever, landing squarely on life under the obsession with technology, influencer culture, and the chaos of capitalism and consumerism everywhere you look.

WHERE TO WATCH IT- Rent or buy The Truman Show on Apple TV. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:32)