The Fourth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 17

1998’s ‘The Truman Show’ is something of a genre-defying movie, that also turned out to be ahead of its time. Had it been made more recently, it might well be viewed as a satire of the celebrity-obsessed culture of the world we know today. But in 1998, reality TV wasn’t really all that prevalent, and while being ‘rich and famous’ might have been something people aspired to, it was generally still considered the ‘done thing’ to be at least vaguely talented at something in order to become rich and famous in the first place.

Prescient as ‘The Truman Show’ turned out to be, it is still an incredibly effective movie in its own right and enabled Jim Carey to demonstrate that he was capable of a more subtle and nuanced style of comedic acting than had been his calling card up to that point. He was overlooked for the Oscar but deservedly picked up a Golden Globe for his troubles, as did co-star Ed Harris.

‘The Truman Show’ also has the unusual distinction of having a mental health condition named after it.

Score for Christmasishness

I’m not sure why I thought ‘The Truman Show’ was at all Christmas(ish). I think I read somewhere that it was, but it really isn’t. However, there are a couple of scenes, when we revisit moments from Truman’s youth, that are set at Christmas. They are pretty much ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ moments, but they are there, so ‘The Truman Show’ makes the cut by the narrowest of margins. It’s a great movie regardless, but if you needed a tenuous reason to add it to your regular Christmas viewing list, then it is just about acceptable.