The Truman Show The Truman Show is an American psychological
fiction comedy-drama film from the year 1998. The plot of the film follows an insurance salesman,
Truman Burbank who is unaware that his entire life is followed by cameras and that he is
part of a massive reality television program. Things get interesting when Truman unravels
the truth and decides to escape his fake life. The movie opens with a series of interviews with
the cast and crew of the Truman Show. Christof, the creator and executive producer of the show
is talking about how the audience is bored from seeing the phony emotions of the actors.
He aims to capture Truman’s natural emotions and give the audience relatable content. Truman
Burbank is shown who is the star of the Truman Show which is a reality television program filmed
24/7 through many hidden cameras inside a large studio, and broadcasted to a worldwide audience.
Meryl is also a part of the show and after being captured 24/7,
she feels no difference between her public and private life. Marlon is another character of
the show and is seen emphasizing the fact about how authentic the show is and that nothing fake
is portrayed on it. The main star of the show is Truman, who starts every day of his life,
unaware of the fact that his whole life is a lie. As he leaves the house, a piece of aircraft falls
from the sky, and Truman is puzzled to see it. The news of an aircraft shedding its parts in
Seahaven is broadcasted on news. Meanwhile, Truman leaves for work and on his way grabs
a few magazines for himself and his wife. He lives on Seahaven Island which is a ginormous
set built within an enormous dome. It is selectively populated by crew members and
actors who are seen highlighting the products and advertising them to generate revenue for the show.
Truman finally reaches his office where he has a desk job as an insurance salesman and tries
calling a girl named Sylvia but is unable to reach her. His colleague asks him to
meet a prospect at a specific place and despite Truman’s reluctance, he is forced to go there.
When he goes to take a ferry to meet the prospect, he is scared to board it and returns back home.
Later, when Truman is busy gardening, his wife, Meryl arrives and advertises a kitchen tool
that she bought. At night while playing golf and having a beer with his friend, Marlon,
Truman tells him that he is planning on quitting his desk job and leaving Seahaven.
Marlon advises against it and thinks that he has the perfect desk job which everyone desires for.
But Truman wants to go to the Fiji Islands. When Marlon further enquires Truman about his plans,
Truman explains that leaving his settled life is difficult as it requires a lot of money but he
is adamant about leaving and exploring the world. That night, Truman remembers the incident of his
father’s death in a sea storm when he was young. Despite his father’s persistence to return back
home, Truman insisted to keep sailing forward which caused his father to die from falling into
the water. This has instilled aquaphobia in Truman which is why he avoids traveling anywhere by sea.
All of a sudden, it starts raining and Truman is completely soaked.
He returns home and proposes an idea to Meryl to get away and explore the world. But Meryl reminds
him of their financial obligations and expresses her desire to plan a baby, making Truman upset.
The next day while going to work, Truman bumps into a homeless man who happens to be his late
father. Truman recognizes him and tries to pursue him but is unable to get to him. Desperate,
Truman goes to his mother, Angela, and explains the situation but his mother keeps neglecting
whatever he says. She tries to make him realize that he is just hallucinating about his father
as he loves and misses him dearly. Moreover, she indirectly blames Truman that it was him
because of whom her husband died in the storm. Dejected, Truman returns home and goes to
his basement to look through his old photographs with his father.
Meryl arrives downstairs and advertises a brand, leaving Truman clueless as always. After she
leaves, Truman opens another suitcase to look for a stole that belonged to his old true love.
The audience who is watching him on television realizes that the creator of the show got rid of
the girl, but couldn’t erase her memory. The show goes into a flashback to when
Truman was in his college and fell in love with a girl named Sylvia.
Despite Truman taking a liking to Sylvia, who was just an extra on the show, the show runners
made Truman meet with Meryl, and ever since Truman is forced to spend more time with Meryl.
One day while studying in a library, Truman comes across Sylvia
and he happily approaches her. Sylvia makes it clear that she is not allowed to speak to him.
However, both of them feel immensely attracted to each other and when Truman offers to take her out,
she insists on going out immediately after avoiding multiple cameras that follow Truman
around. The duo finally reach the seaside where they share a passionate kiss before a
man pretending to be Sylvia’s father arrives and snatches her away. Before leaving, Sylvia spills
the truth to Truman about her real identity and notifies him that he is being controlled
by an elaborate set and situations but her father makes Sylvia look like a schizophrenic patient.
Before leaving, Sylvia asks Truman to leave the place and come find her. This is why Truman keeps
looking for her and wants to move to Fiji where he was told Sylvia’s family moved.
Ever since Sylvia left, Truman has been joining pieces of multiple women’s features together to
create a photo of her and Sylvia is in tears seeing him do this on television.
The next day, when Truman is on his way to the office, he discovers a radio channel that
precisely describes his movements, making Truman extremely suspicious. He starts noticing things
around him more keenly and seems quite puzzled. Since the creator of the show could not predict
Truman’s movements entirely, when Truman reacts out of the ordinary, it creates a strange scenario
around the city and Christof tries to manage it. Thinking that he is being followed,
Truman goes to meet Marlon at his shop and explains the entire situation to him.
He tells Marlon that he thinks his father is alive as they never found his dead body.
Moreover, whenever he is unpredictable, things around him start acting weirdly. Marlone tries
to tell him that he is paranoid and when Truman asks him to skip town with him, Marlon refuses.
Later at night while Truman is looking at his family album with his mother and wife,
his mother keeps hinting to him that she wants a grandchild. When Sylvia and Angela leave,
Truman notices Meryl’s fingers crossed on the wedding photograph, leaving Truman confused.
The next morning, when Meryl leaves for her surgery that she has to perform at the hospital,
Truman follows her and sneaks inside the hospital despite multiple hindrances.
He secretly stares at Meryl to see whether or not she is performing the surgery or not.
However, Meryl has no other choice but to make him feel that she is actually performing the surgery.
Truman then goes to a travel agency to book a flight to Fiji.
The travel agent informs him that there is no flight to Fiji for at least a month.
So, Truman decides to board a bus which also breaks down conveniently when Truman gets on it.
Later, when Meryl returns home, she finds Truman in his car. Truman asks her to come inside and
shows her predicted movements of people as if they are on a loop.
Seeing him upset, Meryl persuades him into saving for a few months and then planning to travel to
Fiji but Truman is adamant to leave immediately and locks her in the car to drive to Fiji.
But as predicted all the roads leading outside Seahaven gets blocked with traffic. Truman decides
to play a trick and take a road trip to New Orleans instead. Suddenly, all the roads clear up
and they somehow end up near a bridge over water. Meryl convinces him that he can’t drive over water
due to his aquaphobia so Truman shuts his eyes and forces Meryl to handle the steering wheel.
Finally, the duo cross the bridge but before they could go any further, they are stopped
by an emergency team blocking the road, who inform Truman about a gas leak and ask him to drive back.
However, Truman realizes that the officer addressed him by his name
so he immediately gets out of his car and runs across the barrier,
but he ends up getting caught anyway. Later, he and Meryl are dropped back
home by the police officers. While Truman is tensed and in a delicate situation,
Meryl attempts to advertise a product. Truman determines that Meryl is a part of the conspiracy
and holds her at knife point. Meryl gets scared and breaks character, asking for help. And just
then, Marlon arrives to help calm the situation. Later at night, Truman has a heart-to-heart
conversation with Marlon and expresses to him that he feels the whole world revolves around him.
Marlon tries to dissuade him and starts reminiscing about his childhood days with Truman.
Truman laughs with his friend but it turns out that it is Christof who is putting words into
Marlon’s mouth. Marlon is forced to assure Truman that he will never lie to him even if
the whole world is playing with him. Just then, Marlon reintroduces Truman to his “dead” father,
Kirk who is actually sent by Christof to bring Truman back into a controllable state.
Truman is in tears seeing his father after all those years and hugs him tightly.
The audience is on pins and needles as they watch the scene and are happy to see the reunion. The
entire crew of the show is elated as the show regains the ratings lead with audiences. However,
Sylvia who was kicked out of the show feels terrible as she desperately wants to save
Truman from getting exploited any further. Christof is then shown in an exclusive interview
through which we come to find out that in the thirty-year-long journey of the Truman Show,
there have been multiple instances when some outsider has infiltrated the show.
However, the recent infiltration of Kirk stirred a crisis in Truman’s life
due to which Christof had no other chance but to bring him back into Truman’s life
in hopes to get Truman back to his routine. Moreover, Christof explains how he manufactured
ways to keep Truman on the island and kept giving him the dangers of exploring and the
virtues of staying at home. He plans to explain Kirk’s 22-year absence from Truman’s life
through amnesia. A caller on the show enquires Christof about the number of cameras he has
implanted on the set and it turns out that he has almost 5000 cameras installed. He also explains
that Truman has been a part of this show ever since birth following an unwanted pregnancy.
Sylvia then calls on the show and blames Christof for turning Truman’s entire life into a mockery
without his consent. Ever since Sylvia was kicked out of the show, she has been a part
of the "Free Truman" campaign, which fights to have Truman released from the program.
After Sylvia’s call, Christof announces that in an upcoming episode, Meryl will
call off her marriage and a new love interest for Truman will be reintroduced in the show.
Meanwhile, in Truman’s world, he seems to return to his routines,
except he begins sleeping in his basement. In his office, he is introduced to a new lady named
Vivien so he can develop a romantic relationship with her. One night, while Truman is asleep in his
basement, Christof is confused to find out that Truman changed his sleeping position.
The crew informs Christof that ever since Meryl left, Truman has been sleeping in the basement.
However, the crew is unable to see him clearly at night due to the obstruction of the cameras.
Christof senses that something is off and quickly sends Marlon to Truman’s house to check on him.
Marlon discovers that Truman has disappeared through a makeshift tunnel in his basement
and unintentionally announces it on camera,
forcing Christof to temporarily suspend the broadcast for the first time in its history.
Chaos prevails everywhere and especially in Christof’s control center. He orders all
the extras of the show to search for Truman. When Truman is nowhere to be found, Christof is forced
to “cue the sun” and break the production's day-night cycle to enhance the search.
The organizers of the show are worried to hear rumors circulating about Truman’s death
after which contractors are persisting to take out their money from the show.
All of a sudden, Christof realizes that he hasn’t been monitoring the sea.
When the shore-based and harbor cameras are monitored, Christof discovers Truman sailing
away from Seahaven on a small boat and has overcome his water phobia. He quickly resumes
the transmission and the audience is enthralled to see Truman back on the screen. Sylvia can’t
stop smiling seeing Truman trying to escape. Christof is unable to get a ferry near Truman’s
boat so he accesses the weather program and orders to localize a storm over Truman’s boat
in hopes to get him back on the island. However, Truman does not turn back after which Christof
intensifies the storm causing him to nearly drown. Despite the team’s reluctance, Christof
keeps increasing the storm making it more and more violent to capsize Truman’s boat but Truman does
not give up. Seeing Truman’s spirit, Christof ends the storm and Truman continues sailing.
All of a sudden, Truman’s boat hits the wall of the set. Truman keeps
hitting the wall and finally discovers a nearby staircase leading to an exit door.
As Truman opens the exit door, Christof addresses him directly through a speaker
and introduces himself, revealing to him the truth about his life and the show.
Truman feels overwhelmed and as he is about to walk out, Christof persuades
him into staying in his world, warning him about the deceitful world that lies outside.
Truman thinks for a moment and says his favorite phrase: "In case I don't see you;
good afternoon, good evening, and good night", and then Truman finally exits out of the show.
Sylvia rushes to meet him and the live audience is excited to see Truman escape. Christof is
devastated and the organizers of the show end the program with a shot of the open exit door.
The movie ends with the audience applauding Truman for his escape. But soon after,
they are over Truman and are curious about what they should watch next.
This movie has a rating of 8.2 on IMDb. The budget of this movie was around $60 million and at the
box office, it earned $264.1 million. I hope you all liked this video. If yes, then make sure to
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