If you loved The Truman Show then you should enjoy this film. Although it is less complex and less thought-provoking than its predecessor, it provides a plot that realistically, and comically, presents the nature of fame and the extent to which the media influences modern life and attitudes.

Ed (Matthew McConaughey) is an ordinary nice guy, working as a clerk in a video store. He likes Burt Reynolds movies, having a good time and, like any other good guy, values his friends and family. However, his life is transformed when he wins a competition which shoots him into the public eye as the subject of a twenty-four hour TV show, the brain child of demoralised TV executive Cynthia ( Ellen Degeneres). Suddenly, Ed’s a TV star, mobbed by screaming girls everywhere he goes, and subject to the seductive tactics of the sultry Jill (Liz Hurley). His jealous brother, Ray (Woody Harrelson) is, well, jealous, while his parents are confused and his girlfriend (Jenna Elfman) is unfairly rejected by the viewing public for being too normal. Ed faces the old choice between wealth and stardom or boring but satisfying reality. Can he turn off the TV?

In a film depicting a film following someones real life, McConaughey is very effective. He comes across as an ordinary guy, at first enamoured with his new-found fame, then genuinely bewildered by the chaos erupting around him. Picked by the fictional network for his ‘wacky’ personality and good, but rugged looks, his personality does come across as charismatic and funny. His roguish charm is both endearing and hilarious, and the delight he shows when cutting his toenails on TV indicates that he is really enjoying himself. Elfman as his girlfriend conveys the same sense of a warm, genuine personality coming through the multi-layers of precarious reality. Meanwhile Jill (Elizabeth Hurley) is brilliantly shallow as the model hired to add a star element to events, and gives a glamourous contribution to a cast that is already colourful. All the characters are fully-developed and well ‘fleshed-out’, so that we feel we know them as intimately as the TV audience in the film thinks it does.

This film combines deft social satire with intelligent humour. Turn off that TV and go see it!

Jane Labous

01 / 08 / 1999