THE TRUMAN SHOW He's the star of the show--but he doesn't know. Truman Burbank is a man whose life is a nonstop TV show. Truman doesn't realize that his quaint hometown is a giant studio set run by a visionary producer/director/creator, that folks living and working there are Hollywood actors, that even his incessantly bubbly wife is a contract player. Gradually, Truman gets wise.

Directed by PETER WEIR Australian Director : Picnic at Hanging Rock Gallipoli The Year of Living Dangerously Witness Mosquito Coast Dead Poets Society Green Card Master and Commander The Way Back (Ed Harris)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT ? Truman Burbank has lived his entire life, since before birth, in front of cameras for The Truman Show, although he is unaware of this fact. Truman's life is filmed through thousands of hidden cameras, 24 hours a day and broadcast live around the world….

….allowing executive producer Christof to capture Truman's real emotion and human behaviour when put in certain situations.

Truman's hometown of Seahaven is a complete set built under a giant atmospheric dome, populated by the show's actors and crew, allowing Christof to control every aspect of Truman's life, even the weather

To prevent Truman from discovering his false reality, Christof has invented means of dissuading his sense of exploration, including "killing" his father in a storm while on a fishing trip to instil in him a fear of the water, and making many news reports and 'adverts' about the dangers of travelling, and featuring television shows about how good it is to stay at home

Despite Christof's control, Truman has managed to behave in unexpected manners, in particular falling in love with an extra, Sylvia or known to Truman as Lauren, instead of Meryl, the character intended to be his wife. Though Sylvia is removed from the set quickly, her memory still resonates with him, and he 'secretly' thinks of her outside of his marriage to Meryl. Sylvia is part of a "Free Truman" campaign that fights to have Truman freed from the show.

During the 30th year of "The Truman Show", Truman begins to notice certain aspects of his near- perfect world that seem out of place, such as a falling spotlight from the artificial night sky constellations that nearly hits him (quickly passed off by local radio as an airplane's dislodged landing light) and Truman's car radio accidentally picking up conversation between the show's crew.

As well as these strange one-off occurrences, Truman also becomes aware of more subtle abnormalities within his regular day-to-day life, such as the way in which the same people appear in the same places at certain times each day and Meryl's tendency to blatantly advertise the various products she buys.

Despite the best efforts of his family and his best friend Marlon to reassure him (the latter being fed lines of comforting dialogue by Christof through a wireless earpiece), all these events cause Truman to start wondering about his life, realizing how the world seems to revolve around him.

One night, Truman manages to fool the cameras and escapes, forcing Christof to temporarily suspend broadcasting of the show for the first time in its history. This causes a surge in viewership, with many viewers, including Sylvia, cheering on Truman's escape attempt.

Christof orders every actor and crew member to search the town, even breaking the town's daylight cycle to help in the search.

An awe-struck Truman then discovers a flight of stairs nearby, leading to a door marked "EXIT". "In case I don't see you ... good afternoon, good evening, and good night,"

THE CHARACTERS Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank: Chosen out of five unwanted pregnancies and the first child to be legally adopted by a corporation. He is unaware that his daily life is broadcast 24 hours a day around the world. He has a job in the insurance business and a lovely wife, but he eventually notices that his environment is not what it seems to be.

Laura Linney as Meryl Burbank / Hannah Gill: Hannah Gill plays Truman's wife, who holds a profession as a nurse at the local hospital. Since the show relies on product placement for revenue, Meryl regularly shows off various items she has recently "purchased," one of the many oddities that makes Truman question his life.

Ed Harris as Christof: The creator of The Truman Show Ed Harris as Christof: The creator of The Truman Show. Christof remains dedicated to the program at all costs, often overseeing and directing its course in person (rather than through aides), but at the climax/resolution, he speaks to Truman over a loudspeaker, revealing the nature of Truman's situation.

Noah Emmerich as Marlon / Louis Coltrane: Louis Coltrane plays Truman's best friend since early childhood. Marlon is a vending machine operator for the company Goodies, who promises Truman he would never lie to him, despite the latest events in Truman's life.

Natascha McElhone as Lauren Garland / Sylvia: Sylvia was hired to play a background extra, a fellow student at Truman's college, named Lauren. She became romantically involved with Truman and tried to reveal to him the truth about his life, but was thrown out of the show before she could do so. She is also a protester against The Truman Show, urging Christof to release its lead.

The Truman Show is repeating a story that dozens of other works of popular fiction have used for decades. It is a story that reveals an essential truth about what is happening to society in the 20th Century. What is that truth? In part, it is about how the media and corporations have begun to surround us with a universe of illusions. From their high-tech control centres, they increasingly script and stage-manage events, creating the danger that we will find ourselves living inside seamless works of theater that we mistake for the world.

Like dozens of characters before him in other works of fiction, the hero in The Truman Show goes on a journey to escape this realm of smoke and mirrors. And then he discovers something unexpected -- what he believed was an open horizon and a way out, is really a wall.

What gives this metaphor life is the way the movie depicts two attitudes we routinely take toward media. In one, we are absorbed by it; we accept its rendition of reality because it occupies our view. We are like children whose parents define their world. The lifelikeness and seamlessness of media fabrications and the fact that they are entertaining, help induce this attitude in us. We frequently experience it while reading news stories and watching television and movies. In the second attitude, we distance ourselves from media. We examine its meaning and try to understand the intentions of its authors. This second attitude is what makes criticism -- and freedom -- possible.

In 2008, Popular Mechanics named The Truman Show as one of the 10 most prophetic science fiction films. Journalist Erik Sofge argued that the story reflects the falseness of reality television. "Truman simply lives, and the show's popularity is its straightforward voyeurism. And, like Big Brother, Survivor, and every other reality show on the air, none of his environment is actually real." He deemed it an eerie coincidence that Big Brother made its debut a year after the film's release.

AND FINALLY…. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist at the Bellevue Hospital Center, revealed that by 2008, he had met five patients with schizophrenia (and heard of another twelve) who believed their lives were reality television shows. Gold named the syndrome "The Truman Show Delusion" after the film and attributed the delusion to a world that had become hungry for publicity.