THE TRUMAN SHOW |
| Beirut, the Gaza Strip, Mosside in Manchester, Bosnia, Downtown Miami,
the Bogside in Derry– all places best avoided on a Saturday Night unless you fancy a
glass in your face or a bullet in your brain. And yet they all fade into insignificance
compared to one hell-hole of warped and deranged humanity (I use the term loosely) where
even Conan the Destroyer would think twice about venturing, even if he did have Grace
Jones with him. Yes, I am talking about Chesterfield, Derbyshire. For it is here that
Cineworld has bravely opened up a new multiplex cinema and from whence I and the Warrior
Mouse recently returned from the jaws of death that are Chesterfield on a Saturday
evening. Oh sorry, I expect you wanted to read about the film did you? Like everyone else says, it’s dead good. Jim Carey shows that he can actually act. Ed Harris shows that his acting is entering the superclass league. The script is grand. All the supporting actors give sterling performances. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll talk about it afterwards. And yet I can’t help feeling it’s not quite the five-star smash that all the other reviewers say it is. It’s derivative (Stepford Wives, It’s a Wonderful Life (the town), 1984, Philip Glass (even though he didn’t write the music)), it has plot holes the size of Texas, it has a happy ending that struck both WM and me as more likely to be the result of voting by brainless preview audiences than the author’s intent. But why carp? It’s better than the average Hollywood film for sure and well worth the admission price. I think it’s something to do with the things in which you’ve been immersed for a lifetime. The average film critic falls over in amazement when she discovers something that is not European and not utterly brainless because she has been raised on a vapid, soulless, utterly boring diet of literature and film based around the emptiness of family drama, where middle-class comment passes for politics and consideration of real intellectual ideas is anathema. On the other hand, the average spotty youth or youthess who has even glanced at the only true literature of the 20th century (I mean science fiction of course) or considered the history of philosophy, even at the amoebic level of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", will see The Trueman Show and cry out "Yeah, very pretty but tell us something new." So, my advice to you is see the film. If an idea has ever crossed your brain you will probably enjoy it though be puzzled at what all the fuss is about. If you are a film critic for the "quality" press you’ll think it’s the second coming. And one last thing – cinema or no cinema, I still don’t think it’s wise to go to Chesterfield after dark. |