How much of who we are is the product of the influences that have been placed in our lives? This is the big question from the 1998 movie The Truman Show, which I watched with my son while we were staying at my sister's house.
In the movie, the eponymous Truman is a man who was adopted by a media corporation at birth and has been raised his whole life as part of a television show, which is broadcast 24 hours a day.
As Truman begins to suspect that his perfect world is not what it seems, he begins to take more and more control of his life, and faces long-standing fears.
In addition to a theme of self-determination, the movie is also an excellent commentary on the deceit of communism. While controlled economies promise stability, the reality is the controls required to make everything go according to plan would be so extensive that it simply isn't worth it. In real life, things rarely go according to script.
The more you think about the premise, the more ridiculous it seems, but I still like the underlying message. Given the choice between a perfect, television show-like world or the messier lives we decide for ourselves, we choose the latter.
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