The Truman Show (1998) [Patreon Exclusive]

Matt (00:00:00):

So we opened the movie with Ed Harris on face. His face is on screen

Laci (00:00:05):

Given face. I feel like this cold open is perfectly designed for whoever is in charge of putting the movie on for the person with them going put at the start. I want to see at the beginning, which is what happened.

Matt (00:00:19):

It is he’s playing Christophe the creator, Christ

Laci (00:00:23):

Christoph,

Matt (00:00:24):

Get it. And Peter Ware suggested that he himself play this role and he had to be talked out of it. In full disclosure, we are recording this a day after we recorded our history segment. I’ve watched the movie again and all I could think about was how much Ed Harris is supposed to be Peter Weir or what Peter Weir thinks of directors. And there’s things like directors sometimes are bitter that audiences don’t know what they do and focus on the actors and the words they say. And they’re like, you only like the actors because of what of me, because of the camera angles and the music and the

Laci (00:00:57):

I’m the maestro.

Matt (00:00:58):

Yes.

Laci (00:00:58):

I’m whispering people’s ears. I wear a beret. We wear a beret.

Matt (00:01:02):

I don’t think so.

Laci (00:01:04):

It was a choice,

Matt (00:01:05):

But yeah, I mean, well, is this a beret? What is this?

Laci (00:01:06):

Or whatever. It’s like a painter’s hat. It’s a beret.

Matt (00:01:09):

Yeah, it semiotics equals artist. Artist.

Laci (00:01:13):

Yes. Whatever guy the fuck it is. It’s that.

Matt (00:01:16):

So he explains, we’ve become bored with actors giving us phony emotions while the world he inhabits is in some respects counterfeit. There’s nothing fake about Truman himself. It’s a life. And then Truman is in his bathroom mirror camera and he is doing imaginary. He play with himself

Laci (00:01:36):

Well, rewording please. Imaginary play with himself doesn’t sound great.

Matt (00:01:40):

Well he’s, he’s

Laci (00:01:42):

Doing an imaginary play by himself.

Matt (00:01:44):

There we go.

Laci (00:01:45):

Okie dokie.

Matt (00:01:46):

Laura Lenny is in a talking head and she’s like the Truman Show. For me, there’s no difference between a private life and a public life. The Truman Show is a life, a noble life, a blessed life.

Laci (00:01:57):

When does she get to spend her money?

Matt (00:02:00):

I assume it’s when her character goes to work. That’s when she leaves.

Laci (00:02:05):

Oh,

Matt (00:02:06):

That’s like when she goes home or

Laci (00:02:08):

Whatever. She can’t go far because if he goes to check on her,

Matt (00:02:12):

They have to say she’s in surgery or whatever. That must be it because they’re so surprised that it doesn’t work on him or No, I mean when he goes to the hospital, they’re like, oh no, she’s in surgery right now and they totally expect him to just turn around, but he just pushes. And then Noah Emerick is Marlon the best friend? He’s like, nothing you see in the show is fake. It’s merely controlled. And Truman continues imaginary playing with himself and then his wife calls Truman, you’re going to be late. So from the start, he’s a child. His mom,

Laci (00:02:43):

He’s in pajamas

Matt (00:02:44):

Calling him to get ready for school

Laci (00:02:47):

And the choice to style her this way, even the products they’re selling seem, I know it’s supposed to be like an idealized middle America thing, but why prudish fifties?

Matt (00:03:02):

So I was thinking about that too. And I think, well Christophe, I think you can read him as

Speaker 3 (00:03:11):

Conservative.

Matt (00:03:12):

Well longing for his own childhood and trying to recreate it and allow somebody else to perpetually live in the childhood. He imagines in the Walt Disney childhood. But there’s also this weird thing. People think Hollywood is like this liberal sicko land, but I think Hollywood is as old fashioned and conservative as whatever your average Fox News viewer. They also have this idealized vision of America.

Laci (00:03:36):

Well, they have an idealized vision of Old Hollywood of when it was the most glamorous thing. The most people didn’t know about it. They still had their secrets. There wasn’t so much access. It could just be glamor in red carpets. Even her hair in her in camera interview is like Rita Hayworth or something. It’s not what she wears on the show. It’s a different version of a glamor person from old Hollywood. Yeah,

Matt (00:04:06):

I think that’s

Laci (00:04:07):

Should train win away.

Matt (00:04:08):

I think that’s true, but I think that Hollywood does have a weird fetishization of small town America and of actually we might vote for different candidates, but we’re all the same. And you’re real good people. You’re real good folk. At the end of the day. I think there’s something like that. And Peter Weir as a Hollywood out, somebody from a different country coming into Hollywood being like, you guys are obsessed with some weird shit.

Laci (00:04:29):

You think it’s because people in Hollywood feel so out of touch that they long for the garb or they signaled that they’re very in touch while just signaling again that they’re out of touch.

Matt (00:04:43):

Well, and then they do that by being super pro-military and pro-war at the end of the day, not actually being believing anything significantly different from what conservatives in America believe. They just kind of paint it differently. Most Hollywood movies are about family values. When you boil them down to it or they’re about whatever, you don’t care.

Laci (00:05:05):

I don’t not care. Just waiting for it to be interesting what you’re saying. I’m just kidding. Kidding. I’m kidding, kidding.

Matt (00:05:10):

So this is day 10,909, which translates to 29 years, 11 months meant to look up Jim Carrey’s age. He seems older.

Laci (00:05:18):

He does.

Matt (00:05:19):

Truman is leaving for work in the morning. He greets his neighbors this enormous Dalmatian Pluto, same thing every day. He’s such a joy to everybody with his catchphrases.

Laci (00:05:30):

They’ve intentionally made him scared of dogs and intentionally put a huge dog as his neighbor’s dog to terrorize him every morning. He does not like getting in his car at work. He’s scared every time. It’s just this very interesting, very lumen thing to do, this destabilizing moment right before you to get in the car and feel good about yourself and go to your work. You’re like, oh, I’m a scared little bitch. I better not drive too far.

Matt (00:05:55):

You’re right. I didn’t even think of, because they have the thing with him as a kid being scared of a dog by the

Laci (00:06:01):

Pier,

Matt (00:06:01):

By the pier. So yeah, just put in these things that he can be afraid of. So

Laci (00:06:05):

It’s a literal boundary around his house.

Matt (00:06:07):

And Laura Linney later is like, let’s just go back home where you’ll feel safe.

Laci (00:06:11):

Exactly. And at any moment that neighbor could be walking his dog. So if chairman were to be trying to get out of where the director wants him on the other side, you just appear on the other side and walking his dog.

Matt (00:06:23):

Yeah, you’re right.

Laci (00:06:23):

And Pluto can jump on him. And that’s what’s really cruel about this world they’ve built for him is they’ve built a really scared person. And that’s why I think he’s just this perfect metaphor for religion. Everything is something, all your thoughts are too wild. If you’re going off script at all, you’re going towards the devil, you’re going toward danger. And so let us give you some things to imagine that danger, what that looks like, what hell might look like, what a sinner’s life looks like. That’s what they’re doing to him. They’re scaring him enough to keep him in line.

Matt (00:07:03):

You see religion and I think that I really, really see it as a parent, a really neurotic parent instilling just the fear of everything into their kid. And often those parents will use religion to get their kids to be afraid of everything.

Laci (00:07:17):

A neurotic parent for sure. But for Truman, it is specifically to keep him not touching water, not going outside, not fantasizing or ever challenging going outside of the dome that he doesn’t know he’s in. So that feels like the harshest part is that he doesn’t really have anyone in his life who truly loves him. I mean, maybe these actors end up caring about him, but even the dad who forces himself back on the show only was upset that he got pushed out the show. Not because he misses Truman.

Matt (00:07:51):

And if they love him, they love this warped version for whom everything has been a fabrication. So you have no idea if you love who this guy really is. At the end of the movie, he tells Ed Harris, you never had a camera inside my head. You don’t actually know me. You don’t actually know what I’m really about.

Laci (00:08:06):

Well, and that’s why that goes back to religion. What we’re teaching people to do is mask how they actually feel. What they’ve taught Truman to do is not, he knows it’s not safe to say these thoughts, to have these feelings. He won’t even have a woman’s magazine because that’s already been shot on. He hides this face, he’s building, he hides the things he actually likes to do. It’s just like a a therapy for people on the spectrum. We’re teaching people to mask. We’re not teaching them to be who they are.

Matt (00:08:35):

You can also read it as somebody coming out as gay or trans and the world being like, what are you talking about? No, you’re not. Or that doesn’t even exist. Look at the front page of the newspaper. Scientists say heterosexual sex. It’s the only way to go.

Laci (00:08:48):

Look. You have a wife. See?

Matt (00:08:52):

So this was filmed in, well, the town of Sea Haven, an idyllic Beachside island. It was really filmed in Seaside, Florida, which is between Destin and Panama City on the Florida panhandle. I have driven through this city. In fact,

Laci (00:09:05):

Oh my God, you’re connected to this movie.

Matt (00:09:07):

Wow, I didn’t know that. It was the Truman Show. This city was built in the 1980s under the philosophy of new urbanism. It’s one of these weird, there’s so many fascinating weird little places in Florida like this where it’s a master planned community. It’s all privately owned by one person. There’s no local government. But the architecture there is very interesting. And you can visit the Truman Show House in Seaside, but the way that this is filmed,

Laci (00:09:33):

It looks so fake. It looks like a set. Yeah,

Matt (00:09:36):

Very much. And I was looking up YouTube videos of this town and everybody’s like, you feel like you’re in a movie when you’re in the town or you feel like you’re in Disney World.

Laci (00:09:47):

Yes. That’s what it looks like. Main Street, USA on every fucking street,

Matt (00:09:51):

Which is

Laci (00:09:52):

Also the excessive use of the guys picking up trash. There’s like three in one shot and I know they’re there to be muscle in case he gets erratic and does something weird. But there’s three men who are supposed to pick up trash. You can’t see any trash on the ground, but they are using a little grabber, putting it. There’s nothing they’re actually putting into anything. And there’s so many of them. And it’s just like Disney World. You’re not even allowed to have a piece of popcorn on the ground. There’s someone that shoots right out of a fucking manhole and sweeps it up wearing his little cadet. Hello madam fucking newsy hat

Matt (00:10:22):

And Truman’s mother later on basically lets you know what she thinks of homeless people in riffraff. This is like a, we want a perfect world. No homeless, no poverty anywhere. You can’t see it. If it’s there, we’ll take it out and hide it from you. But it’s interesting, this town built in the 1980s to try to both recreate a classic main street and try to have a walkable city, but without any of the history of actual urban centers where things naturally develop in a way where people can walk and there’s a town center and stuff instead. It’s all artifice.

Laci (00:10:58):

Yeah, everything looks like the front of a set in the back. You expect it to look like not put together at all. The house fronts just look like they should be propped up on a A-frame.

Matt (00:11:10):

But the way this is shot is you will get the shots that are within the circular frame, which are the cameras within the show that are catching him. And then you’ll get regular movie shots. But they’re a little, this part of the movie, they’re a little janky sometimes they’re handheld, they’re from low angles, just to let you know something’s a little off. Truman feels a little bit off. And as he starts to understand better, they become more stable and they become more normal. And then this light inexplicably falls from the sky. Truman doesn’t know what it is where it’s from. Something

Laci (00:11:39):

I noticed on this watching that I don’t think I noticed before, and it’s what is weird to him. He’s having these big reactions to things and it’s like all of the people on the set have been told to stay calm and to pretend like nothing weird is happening. But they do it too much. They do it so much that they’re not human. And over and over again in the movie, he’s looking around to see no one. I’m causing a huge commotion and no one is looking at me or no one thinks I’m weird except for when they physically have to stop him from doing something. But even then they just, okay, bye. There’s no consequences. Everyone is so underplaying everything that they’re looking fake instead of making him feel comforted.

Matt (00:12:23):

You’re right. I was thinking that too. They’re insisting way too much that things are okay and good. If they toned it down a little bit, it would feel more real to him. But everyone he talks to is like, no, no, no, no. This light falls. And immediately he’s on the

Laci (00:12:37):

Radio. Well, and he’s looking around. He’s looking around. There’s no one out to go to work. Why is he the only one that sees this big giant thing fall and crash to the ground? And he’s picking it up and moving it around. It’s like all the actors have left their houses. No one’s actually in them to look. And you’re off script. You’re supposed to be in your car by now, and who’s keeping track of you is the radio person. We’re not on the clock right now, so we’re not even here to react to you. And that is what, that’s the big giveaway is that it’s Ed Harris in everyone’s ear. Every time someone needs to be told in direct, he’s literally feeding the script because it all does sound like one homogenous voice. It doesn’t sound like these people have personalities.

Matt (00:13:20):

Yeah, you’re right. And he gets in his car, he hears on the radio immediately. Hey folks, we just got reports on an airplane, dropped off some weird shit. You might’ve seen it in the streets. Nothing to worry about though, folks. And I love Jim Carey when he hears this. He’s like, oh

Laci (00:13:35):

Yeah, I didn’t notice.

Matt (00:13:38):

So again, the idea of the perpetual child whose parents are telling the child lies to keep them protected from the ugliness of the world. Do you remember, sorry to derail us, but when the older child that we have was maybe two or three years old, you had this thing, I remember them being accidentally a very concerned about birds eating food that they dropped outside and

Laci (00:14:05):

No, they were hugely obsessed with not littering. You do not put things on the ground. And that’s when I made up the rule that as long as a bird can eat it, we can leave it on the ground.

Matt (00:14:16):

But there was something that happened where they left a bagel

Laci (00:14:19):

About to tell you we were trying to get them into the car and the bagel went on the ground. They were adamant we were littering and needed to be picked up. And I said, no, that is a bird can eat it and you’re going to make a bird’s day. You’re going to make them so happy. So when they got home, I had written a note as if I were the bird and put it in the same spot where it was, and I pulled up to that spot and the kid got out and was like, you were right.

Matt (00:14:49):

Okay, I’m glad you remembered.

Laci (00:14:51):

Yes, of course. That kid brings it up all the time.

Matt (00:14:54):

Oh, okay. Yeah. Music like this obscure memory,

Laci (00:14:56):

It’s a core memory. No, for them it’s a core memory also that in the damn ball, the bouncy ball that I had to, that’s a whole other

Matt (00:15:04):

We won’t

Laci (00:15:04):

Get for another time.

Matt (00:15:06):

And then the radio station’s like, okay, anyway, enough of that unpleasant list. Now let’s get back to our normal things. We play classical music to calm you down. Some of this is we got to keep the child calm.

Laci (00:15:18):

Ms. Casey’s wellness from severance is like, oh, you’re getting rowdy. Let’s tell you about your Audi. Is that right?

Matt (00:15:25):

So he gets to work, he sells insurance or something.

Laci (00:15:29):

God, he does or something that needs policy. But you got to think they pick this job for him because he needs a win when they want him to feel energized or some kind of motivation for a win. And he needs to lose or have a bad day when they need to take him down at Peg.

Speaker 3 (00:15:47):

So

Laci (00:15:47):

It’s like they perfectly, they gave him a job where he doesn’t actually have any control over winning or losing. He’s doing the same good job with everyone. He’s not actually winning any accounts unless they pretend he is or losing them. It’s kind of a perfect way of going. Your temperature needs to be dialed this way. You won an account,

Matt (00:16:06):

They can turn the happiness dial for him

Laci (00:16:08):

Or bring him down, buddy, bring it down. You want to go to Fiji, you just lost a big account. You don’t have the money for that. They keep him just poor enough, but enough money to be happy. But his wife constantly brings up money anytime he wants to do something

Matt (00:16:24):

And later when she says, all right, let’s save for a few months, and then we’ll go to Fiji and they’ll have him lose his job in the meantime and a big crisis will happen

Laci (00:16:32):

And they need to save. But as soon as the lawnmower’s not working, why don’t you pick up one of those new lawnmower? Because it’s a spot. It’s a TV commercial. She’s just like, buy a brand new lawnmower. You just said, we can’t go to Fiji, which is it I’m working on, I’m just going to fix it.

Matt (00:16:48):

We’re going to not buy products. He is secretly already, he has secrets. He’s secretly opening up the magazine. And at first you’re like, he’s ogling the ladies in the catalog. Now he’s ripping out pictures for some

Laci (00:17:02):

Reason. And he clearly bought Eyeball magazine because every page is just a perfect lady’s face. It’s like they want this, they like that. He’s doing these weird things. He’s clearly obsessed over this woman that went away. It’s not a secret. The whole world is watching him build this face.

Matt (00:17:17):

No, I know.

Laci (00:17:19):

No, no, I know love. But I’m saying I think it’s interesting when you look at the magazines that are available, it is just different women with just their face that they’re giving them the supplies to build the thing he’s building. It’s like, look, here’s every woman’s, do you find anything in here that would look a little bit like her? They’re progressing the storyline by giving him what he needs to make

Matt (00:17:38):

It happen. Okay. I assumed it was a real magazine, but okay. That’s

Laci (00:17:40):

Interesting. No, no. And dog fancy isn’t either.

Matt (00:17:43):

I thought it said L. You could tell me any magazine is real. I’d be like, oh,

Laci (00:17:46):

The thing is, she is the magazine in the,

Matt (00:17:50):

And then he’s making phone calls to directory assistance Fiji. So is this an actual outside phone line? Do they let him have access to the phone?

Laci (00:17:58):

There’s no way. No.

Matt (00:17:59):

But as he’s doing this, his coworker comes up, he’s like, Truman, you’ll see the news and the front page of the newspaper says like experts say, see Haven the best town in

Laci (00:18:07):

The world. And he’s just doing exactly what someone over their cubicle would do. He’d be like, get the, no, I’m on the phone.

Matt (00:18:14):

But again, this is the parent who has the kid and they live in a small town and you’re very afraid your kid’s going to leave one day. You’re like, but this is the perfect place. What else is there you could ever want?

Laci (00:18:24):

Put it in. Got you a birthday present. New Haven, perfect town.

Matt (00:18:28):

But hey buddy, you have a new client over on Harbor Islands and we need you to go out there. You better do it. Or you might lose your job.

Laci (00:18:36):

Fuck, what is this fucking job? And it’s a coveted job, Matt. It’s an office job. You lose. They can only afford to put four offices in this dome. So while his best friend makes sure to let him know you are the bet, you’re all within the top. I still have your job, but obviously this is just a ploy to, he’s looking into Fiji, so not to go there, but he is calling around. So they have to reinstill this fear in him, and they’re going to make him go by the water where he avoids it all the time with a little sunken boat to Fri fuck with him.

Matt (00:19:18):

Well, he goes and he buys the ticket and it’s very terminal. Guy’s like one way or return, he’s like, what? Return? Return, of course. And then you go inside the ticket booth and you see the guy then open the blind so that the camera can follow him. And then the guy pokes his head out

Laci (00:19:31):

Watching the show too.

Matt (00:19:33):

But it’s not unusual for Truman. Everybody’s always watching him, always

Laci (00:19:35):

Doing this.

Matt (00:19:36):

So as he walks to the dock, yeah, he sees they’ve just put a sunken boat right there for him to look at and be traumatized by as he’s like, ah, you guys go ahead on your boat trip. That’s fine. Then we go and we meet Laura Lenny as his wife Meryl, and she’s this very old fashioned nurse who wears a very old fashioned nurse’s cap. She goes to market and comes home and she’s like, look what I got Truman. It’s the chef’s pal. That’s a greater er, peeler all in one. Never needs sharpening. Dishwasher safe. Whenever she does a little ad read, the camera will zoom in on her. And he never seems to know how. He’s like, okay,

Laci (00:20:07):

But he’s aware. It’s weird, right? But you grew up with this. This is how everyone who’s got a major role in your life has to do their commercial spots, but he’s never had the urge to do it himself. That’s how he knows he’s different. Because you can also read this as a person with autism. He’s experiencing this world in a way that no one around him is. And he’s constantly like, am I weird? Or was that fucking weird? I don’t get you people. And I would probably not even have a partner in this world if you weren’t forced to be with me. I’m not like anyone else here.

Matt (00:20:47):

Every time I’ve worked in an office that you did not also work at, I felt like this. I felt insane. Everyone here is so happy. They’re talking to each other in a language I don’t understand. They’re laughing. They’re sharing stories. And I’m like, now that’s because I’m antisocial. I need my Laci to force me to talk to people. Okay,

Laci (00:21:05):

Well, you said something adorable, so I’m not going to make you mad right now, but we’re going to have a talk about that later.

Matt (00:21:09):

Alright, so then he goes to hit golf balls off a bridge with his best friend, Marlon, Noah Emrick, who always, who’s a better ad pitch man than Laura Lenny, because he will just hold the label of his thing up in front of the camera. Although I guess they’re not telling him well. He says, no, that’s a beer.

Laci (00:21:24):

Yeah, he says a tagline. But he definitely works it into the conversation though, where she’s just like,

Matt (00:21:31):

Yeah, she’s over it. Maybe she was better at this when they first got married. So he is like, Hey, Marlon, I think I’m thinking of going to Fiji. And he’s like, Fiji, where’s that even in the world? And he takes out a golf ball. And I love the way he describes this. He says, we’re here. And then he goes all halfway around the golf ball and he’s like, and here’s Fiji. You can’t go any further away before you start coming back. What a poetic little thing to say. And so then Truman is, well, no, Americ is like, Hey, do you want to go get a drink? It’s like, well, that’s what you’re doing right here. But he’s like, no, I have something to do. And what he has to do is go sit on the beach by himself and look out at the ocean and ponder.

Laci (00:22:05):

He’s truly alone. He’s going through his resources work that didn’t work out, wife that did not work out. Best friend me by myself. Now

Matt (00:22:15):

We get this flashback of him and his dad on a boat in a storm. Then his dad falling overboard and drowning. And in the present it starts raining, but only on him, and he steps out of the rain and it follows him. And he just exclaims enjoy and wonder.

Laci (00:22:28):

He’s so amused by it. It is wild.

Matt (00:22:31):

So I mean, this is just the people upstairs fucking up.

Laci (00:22:36):

Now I, while this, so the light and this, they happen very close together. And I guess you could read it as shit like, this is always getting fucked up. It’s a huge set. There’s a lot of workers. How could you keep it all together all the time? But then I thought, oh, maybe that woman that he fell in love with, maybe she got a job at the company and she’s doing these little things. He’s finally ready. He’s finally ready to see it. So she’s making, or has been all along trying to sabotage. And then of course that’s not actually, but as we’re watching, I’m like, because I too was like, come, this happens all the time. This stupid shit.

Matt (00:23:15):

If it were a TV show, that would be happening.

Laci (00:23:18):

And then when you think about it, it’s a big set, but it’s just a bunch of regular people. But you got to think, this isn’t the way that rain operates inside of this dome that looks like a shower. That doesn’t make sense at all. And even when they turn on the full reign, you still can see this piece of it completely separate from the rest of it. So that was just for the, that’s just funny. And it’s just a funny way to see a

Matt (00:23:43):

Mistake. Unlike we were talking about severance on severance, it’s like the simulation that only renders things. You’re looking at this rain that will only rain where you’re standing to try to give you the illusion that it’s raining everywhere. But he runs home to talk to his wife, and his wife is always fully made up, even though supposedly this is late at night and she’s getting ready for bed and he is like, Hey, listen, we can save up $8,000 and bum around the world for a year. And she’s like, but no, we have mortgage payments and financial obligations, and don’t you want to have a baby? Which is

Speaker 3 (00:24:12):

Crazy.

Matt (00:24:13):

So it’s live the American dream with me. Home ownership, babies, endless debt and consumption.

Laci (00:24:18):

What do you think they’re going to pay an actress to have an actual baby? And then legally, that baby is half of this man that you don’t even actually love. You’ve been asked as a fucking profession to marry him and have a baby with him. So you share corporate baby.

Matt (00:24:37):

Yes, indeed. What a question. Would they fake that she’s pregnant and then they just bring in another orphan baby? But then she’s seductively is like, but it’s time for bed. And this is the first time we cut away to the real world, to the garage security guys watching. And they’re like, you never get to see anything good. It always cuts away when they’re about to have sex

Laci (00:24:58):

The whole time. Aren’t you just thinking how boring this must have been before he got to dating age or just what you’re watching a baby?

Matt (00:25:05):

Yeah, I know the show started when he was born. Oh, we get to watch a baby. The baby doesn’t even know he is on camera. Real babies don’t either.

Laci (00:25:13):

Oh my God. He is a toddler. It definitely is something you probably just check into, but you’d think there’d be shows built around just giving you highlights. Most of it’s just that little camera you put by baby chick eggs to see when they’re going to hatch. You just check in the nature channel or whatever. It’s like, Ooh, what’s happening with the baby chicks?

Matt (00:25:30):

Yeah, when the Olympics are on, you can get the sports package where you can see every single event live, or you can see the condensed, nightly broadcast of here’s all the important shit. So maybe that’s going on too.

Laci (00:25:42):

And that’s why I think they encourage things like him building the magazine because there’s not, so an ordinary life is ordinary and boring. So they’ve got to add drama for the sake of the show and for the sake of keeping him in line. But you got to think they were always adding things.

Matt (00:25:59):

I’m no scholar of the real world, but I think my understanding is the first season was like, yeah, these are real people. And they realize in between season one and two is like, we need to insert conflict into this to make it

Laci (00:26:11):

More,

Matt (00:26:12):

And it becomes more artificial, but it makes it a more compelling drama. And we need to manufacture conditions in the house that they live in to increase the tensions.

Laci (00:26:22):

All the girls sleep in one room, all the guys sleep in one room. So if they want to hook up now, they’ve got to do it in front of each other, different, or there were definitely seasons where maybe all of them, where they all had to have a job. And I think when they was in New Orleans, they had to work at the radio station here.

Speaker 3 (00:26:40):

I

Laci (00:26:40):

Think I might be totally making that up. But they would make them all also work together. You have to. They can’t just be hanging around the house. That’s too fun. You also need to depend on them and get mad at them.

Matt (00:26:51):

The next day, Truman passes a weird looking guy in the town square and he’s like, dad, he goes over to him and it is his dad, and he touches his face, but then the score immediately gets very intense and extras spring into action. And they confiscate. The dad put him on a bus. I just kept thinking, this movie is, the extras are all white blood cells attacking a virus or attacking a contagion. So he goes over to his mother’s house, his mother played by Holland Taylor, and she’s like, yes, Truman, I see him all the time 10 times a week. I almost hugged a stranger.

Speaker 3 (00:27:23):

No.

Matt (00:27:23):

And he’s like, but, but then a businessman and a woman with a little dog. They came out of nowhere and they just forced him onto a bus. And she’s like, well, it’s time. They did something about the homeless in this town.

Laci (00:27:32):

They’ve got an answer for everything. It’s got to feel, he’s got to feel like he’s not surefooted or as quick as a thinker because there’s not anyone in his ear telling him what to say, where they are always prepared with exactly what to say, because Truman can only be in one spot at one time. So of course, the producer’s in their ear and feeding the exact right thing to propel the script. So there’s no normal silence and breaks in conversation or time to think. They don’t need time to think he does, so he’s got to feel like I’m just not as fast as you guys

Matt (00:28:09):

Are. And they’re also always talking in such a way to reset and provide exposition to people who might just be tuning in. She’s like, of course that day you went off in the storm with your dad. Of course I’ve never blamed you for that. Didn’t blame you back then. Don’t blame you now. So yeah, we just have to awkwardly always like a radio DJ who’s always top of the hour.

Laci (00:28:36):

And that’s when we see that they do show clips. They will do flashbacks. They will assume that he’s sitting there thinking about something. So they’ll show a clip from that. It’s like, oh, of course. That’s how you build out the content. So I’m sure the show wasn’t as good in the beginning, and it’s just as, there’s things to think back to. There was a couple of funny things that happened when he was three years old. So when he’s five years old and things are kind of like that. Play those.

Matt (00:29:01):

Yeah. And Ed Harris said when they started the show, they only had one camera. Now they have 6,000. So yeah, it was probably really boring back

Laci (00:29:07):

Then.

Matt (00:29:07):

But Truman, he’s in his basement and this basement, he’s set up a childhood bedroom that he retreats to in, oh,

Laci (00:29:14):

I didn’t notice

Matt (00:29:14):

That. The basement complete with a toy chest full of toys and stuff. And as he’s coming down here, he hears his wife coming down the stairs. So he gets up and acts like he’s working on the lawnmower, he’s doing a man thing. And she’s like, Hey, you ought to throw out that old mower, get one of those new elk rotaries. And he’s like, Hmm, what an odd thing to say. But she leaves.

Speaker 3 (00:29:34):

And

Matt (00:29:34):

Then once she’s gone, he pulls out an old sweater from the toy chest and it’s, well, we cut to the real world, this bar where this bar is, as Laci said, the Truman Show super fan bar. But there’s a new bartender who’s not as familiar with the show, and it’s like, so what’s going on here? They’re like, oh, see, now he’s about to remember. He’s about to have a flashback to this girl that he met in high

Laci (00:29:55):

School. He’s having it not, we don’t know what he’s thinking, but the show decides, I know what you want to think about. And then he shows, they show all her wearing that sweater and the kiss.

Matt (00:30:06):

Yeah. So in high school, I mean, tell us about this high school thing.

Laci (00:30:09):

Is this high school?

Matt (00:30:10):

Yeah.

Laci (00:30:10):

Oh

Matt (00:30:11):

Yeah. Because Truman and Marlon play in the high school band, and

Speaker 3 (00:30:16):

They’ve

Matt (00:30:17):

Clearly set it up so that Laura Lenny is the new actress who’s going to run into him and start a romance, but he’s going off script by continuing to notice this girl who’s Lauren on the show. Really? Sylvia played by Natasha, and he looks over at her and they smile, and you can see Marlon noticing it too, and then trying to distract him coming and blowing a trumpet in his face. It’s like, no, no, no. You’re not supposed to be looking over there.

Laci (00:30:40):

Right? We’ve got this whole cheerleader that’s going to pretend to follow on you in a second, and we’ve got her under contract, so you’re going to need, she’s already agreed to the whole thing.

Matt (00:30:47):

No, this is very a wide casting net to find her.

Laci (00:30:50):

We vetted, we made sure she’s not some radical. She’s totally okay with this whole idea. She’s willing to have a baby if needed. And we can kind of decide what we can infer that Sylvia has political thoughts around the show and what it’s doing. I don’t think she became radicalized on the show. I think she’s there because she’s curious about it and feels that it’s not correct to be doing to a person. She’s got a little pin that says, how’s it going to end? That’s clearly the show that she’s talking about, not some other random protest. And I don’t know, they have a connection. They lock eyes, they feel something.

Matt (00:31:41):

And they’re at this 1940s school dance where they’re dancing to big band music and he’s dancing with Laura Lenny, but he keeps locking eyes with this new girl, and then the new girl gets escorted out by some security officers, which he notices,

Laci (00:31:55):

And he notices her bracelet. And then we go to a library scene where Laura Lenny and his best friend are trying to talk him into going to have a beer or whatever it’s they want to do in high school. And he’s like, no, you guys are going to need to cheat off me. We’re all going to get a bad grade or whatever. Anyway, he wants to stay and study. And then he notices across in the next cubicle, the same bracelet. It’s her.

Matt (00:32:20):

Why would they let her in here? It’s so close. She’s already been

Laci (00:32:22):

Escorted off, but I think they realize it’s they’ve got to do something.

Matt (00:32:28):

Good drama. So she’s like, Hey, I’m not allowed to talk to you. And he’s like, what? Oh, is it because you have a boyfriend? No. He’s like, well, would you want to go out with me maybe this Friday? And she writes on her notebook now. He’s like, now. And she says, if it doesn’t happen now, it’s never going to happen. So she escapes with him to the beach,

Laci (00:32:45):

And I’m thinking the whole time, I’m like, wait, how are they letting this happen at all if they don’t want this? And then it’s like, oh, duh. They do want this. They don’t want her to tell him that this is a fake, you’re going to show they want her to be a love interest. That’s not, they wanted to cause the drama there. They’re giving him just enough rope to do something interesting. But as soon as she starts saying things that she shouldn’t be saying, which was her whole purpose to begin with, that’s when the dad comes shooting out on the beach in his car to pick up his daughter. How the fuck did he know she was there? Did he drive over a dune?

Matt (00:33:17):

Yeah.

Laci (00:33:17):

How did he get there?

Matt (00:33:18):

Yeah. Well, so she just heard Truman, it’s a show. Everything is fake. Everybody’s pretending my name’s not Lauren, it’s Sylvia. And her dad’s like, no, no, no. She has schizophrenia. It’s really sad. But we’re moving to Fiji. You’ll never see her again. Don’t worry.

Laci (00:33:29):

You’re not the first person that’s happened to. I’ve a lot of guys, oh geez,

Matt (00:33:32):

Lots of boyfriends

Laci (00:33:33):

Stuff.

Matt (00:33:34):

So many boyfriends. But yeah, it’s a set. Everything’s fake. Everybody’s lying to you. And she says, get out of here, escape here, and then come find me. And then they drive off and he’s like, so you’re at school? But she’s left her sweater behind and he has clung to it all this time. And then the bartender, the new bartender’s like, huh, I can’t believe he married Meryl on the rebound. So even she’s immediately getting an opinion, just like with real reality TV people get their opinions about certain people, but back in the present, we see what Truman is doing. He’s using the magazine photos to try to piece together her likeness. And then we cut to the real Sylvia, who is tuning in all the time to the show. And I started to really think about Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, but I’ll get to it when there’s the parallels really start up later, but just right here, like Jimmy Stewart trying to recreate this woman from his past who wasn’t even real, who was manufactured even then. But then, okay, so he’s in the car and the radio malfunctions, and suddenly he tunes into the radio frequency that all the crew members talk on, and you just get this moment where they’re narrating what he’s doing in the car.

(00:34:44):

And this is not only my favorite scene in the movie. It’s like one of my favorite scenes in movies, period. It is so scary. If you just made this into an eight minute short film and you made this a little longer and took a little while before he realizes what’s going on, it would be so

Laci (00:35:01):

Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree.

Matt (00:35:04):

And then he nearly hits a woman. Oh my God, he nearly hit her. A big, big radio beep goes out, and then all the extras react at one time, and then the regular radio DJ comes back. Sorry folks. We must’ve picked up a police frequency by a mistake. But yeah, it’s like out of, you could have this as a dream, somebody just narrating everything I’m doing. And I think there’s been movies about video game characters like the freaking Ryan Reynolds free guy movie where maybe this is more in the public consciousness now of somebody getting an understanding that they are being controlled.

Speaker 3 (00:35:38):

But

Matt (00:35:39):

This is what makes him now, like he is wandering through the town square and he’s just slowing down and realizing kind of how odd everything is. Not that odd. Not that he’s able to really even notice, but if he goes off his normal path, thinks to go a little differently, and he is like, we’ll rapidly change directions or bend down to tie his shoes, and then he steps out in front of a bus and just hold his hand out and then hold his hand out to another car.

Laci (00:36:05):

He’s control. I mean, it’s like, oh, you should be Bruce Almighty one day because he’s realizing he’s some kind of a guy.

Matt (00:36:12):

I am a go.

Laci (00:36:13):

He knows that everything’s centered around him, but he doesn’t know why he’s been chosen. It has something to do with his dad, baby. And the thing with the radio, it just sucks. He knows. He knows right away. No one’s going to believe him. And it’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to anyone.

Matt (00:36:30):

And they’re going to explain it with something really lame. Sorry folks. It looks like we picked up a police frequency by mistake. So Truman runs into this office building that he’s never been in, and everybody in this lobby snaps to action like white blood cells. They’re like, whoa, what are you doing here, sir? You can’t be in here. And an elevator shaft opens, but it’s not an elevator, it’s just a craft service back back lot thing. And they just throw him out. So he sees his friend Marlon in a grocery store, and he goes to talk to him and his friend Marlon, is restocking a vending machine. You get through

Laci (00:37:02):

The vending machine shot. Yes,

Matt (00:37:02):

Vending machine cam. And I noticed that Marlon, he’s loading candy bars into the thing, and whenever Truman doesn’t look, he takes them back out so he can put them back in again. He’s just playing for time to just keep Truman talking. Just a fun little detail. So he’s like, explains everything. And he’s like, Truman, this is just another one of your fantasies. But he’s like, you know what? I feel like my whole life has been leading to something. And I think what that thing is is that I’m leaving. He’s like, why would you want to leave? I’ve been all over the world. Never found a place as perfect as this though.

Laci (00:37:41):

Okay, so now, because he’s getting this wonders spirit, and this is just how people feel sometimes I think you’re kind of born with this. I don’t know if it’s your surroundings and maybe it’s nature and nurture, but I had a best friend who just needed to leave that this was never going to be where they stayed and they didn’t never want to stay put every now and then switched states. It’s just, and of all the babies that could have been born, they had to have a wonderlust baby, maybe a different baby born named Truman would’ve just wanted to stay put, but they weren’t that lucky.

Matt (00:38:15):

Some people want to move to different states. Some Laci Roths just want to move to different apartments. And when she can’t do that, she’s like, well, she gets itchy. She’s like, I need to paint this room. I need to rearrange the bed.

Laci (00:38:27):

We all get that itch. We’re just not all that brave. And so they’re like, okay, we need to get him real sentimental then, and prove to him that outside places exist as well. So it is just a shot. They’re at his mom’s house and the wife and the mom are on either side of him looking at a photo album that you just know they’ve seen a hundred fucking times and reminiscing about stuff as if it had just, I can’t believe this is in here. This picture of you at Mount Rushmore.

Matt (00:38:55):

Oh, our wedding. Remember that?

Laci (00:38:58):

Remember this, honey, we got married.

Matt (00:39:01):

Mount Rushmore looks a lot smaller. Things always do when you see them anyway.

Laci (00:39:04):

And you were asleep the whole time. We were on the road. It’s fucking creepy. They gave him a pill or something. He knocked his ass

Matt (00:39:12):

Out, walked up in the parking lot for 12 hours. But then the mom and Laura Lenny leave. And so he’s just flipping through the photos and sees a picture of, I guess the moment they wed legally, and Laura Lenny has her fingers crossed, and he’s like, fingers crossed. Say what? And so the next morning he’s like, he doesn’t know if his wife is in on it yet. He’s like, Hey, can I talk to you on online? And she’s like, no, no, no, I have to go. And he’s like, why do you have to go? And she said, well, there was a big accident and it was a big elevator accident at the office. You actually work at the next door.

Laci (00:39:45):

How does that explain that? There’s people eating lunch, sitting in fucking director’s chairs when you open an elevator. That’s how they die. They all crashed and went into craft services.

Matt (00:39:57):

Heaven. Is it just another We’re explaining too much. We’re insisting too much. You didn’t have to explain this. Yeah,

Laci (00:40:02):

You didn’t even have to know that I saw that. I mean, you saying it makes me feel like,

Matt (00:40:08):

Yeah,

Laci (00:40:08):

Yeah.

Matt (00:40:09):

And so she’s like, well, we have an emergency amputation. I got to go. Poor girl. We’re going to take off her leg. Wish me luck. I’ll cross my fingers for you.

Laci (00:40:17):

And that actually did, because you get the sense that maybe she’s doing that often when she’s saying something, she’s asked to say something. She doesn’t mean that might be her thing because she seems to know that that’s pointed at her, which is like, why would she feel like he was being a

Matt (00:40:35):

Dick? She gets on her bike to go to work. And again, I assume that this is when the actress leaves the set and gets to go live her life for eight hours, but instead she’s told in her walkie or whatever, Hey, he’s following you. He’s following you to work. So you actually have to go to the hospital this morning and the hospital’s like,

Laci (00:40:51):

We need people in here to look like they’re doing

Matt (00:40:53):

Hospital stuff. Yes. Here. Now do hospital stuff. What does that mean? I don’t know. Scalpel the stuff

Laci (00:40:57):

Scope, but the whole hospital needs to be inhabited too. Normally this could just be an empty building.

Matt (00:41:01):

So

Laci (00:41:01):

It’s just like we need crutches. Everyone put on the props that are in the hospital thing. When you walk through the door, lady with dog put down, dog pick up crutches, and just like everything they overcorrect now it’s the most crowded. There’s not enough people in this town to make mainstream street that crowded every time he walks to work. But they just put a bunch of fucking, it doesn’t make sense. There are only so many fucking houses in this town. So why are there so many people at the fucking hospital right now?

Matt (00:41:30):

And as he makes his way into surgery, ward, things keep getting in his way. Can people on wheelchairs wheel in front of him? And he is like, no, no, no. This doesn’t make sense. Or it’s like inception where the longer you stay in a dream, the the people in the dream will know that you don’t belong there and they will resist you. It’s like that, which I think is also the metaphor of white blood cells. I think that was intentional. It’s like a body fighting off a disease, but he sneaks to the surgery ward or whatever it is, and the people, Laura Lenny’s in there with the doctor actor, and they’re like, so yeah, I’ll just

Laci (00:42:05):

Cut right above the knee here, and it’s a perfect leg. There’s nothing wrong with this leg. And the person’s still awake.

Matt (00:42:14):

Do they actually cut her leg off? I can’t tell.

Laci (00:42:16):

No. She thinks they’re going to,

Matt (00:42:19):

But then the guy’s acting like, okay, I’ll let somebody else clean this up. He actually did something.

Laci (00:42:27):

He might cut her a little or something. I don’t know. They definitely try to put her to sleep

Matt (00:42:32):

For real. It’s a little too, I feel like the movie should be like, yeah, they’d be willing to just cut off a woman’s leg to keep up this. They

Laci (00:42:39):

All sign waivers. Okay. They want to be part of this human experiment. There are sacrifices.

Matt (00:42:45):

So he goes,

Laci (00:42:46):

Oh, I didn’t even notice the picture of the, okay, so he’s in the travel agent place, and of course we all notice the poster of it could happen to you and it’s lightning going through a flying airplane. I didn’t realize that. Right next to it was a boat in the water that’s just like the, it’s identical to his boat.

Matt (00:43:02):

Yes. But I love this plane poster so much. Not normally this would be an advertisement for something, nothing. It is just, Hey, you might want to take a trip, but be warned, you might get struck by lightning and die in the air.

Laci (00:43:13):

Planes do this. Right. And I love the detail of the travel agent unexpectedly having to come out. So she’s still got her napkin on her, which is what they put down whenever they’re touching up someone’s face with makeup. So she wasn’t eating a sandwich. She was getting her makeup done, and she ran on the set. Sometimes the news anchors will do it on accident because it happened so

Matt (00:43:33):

Quickly. Okay. I thought it was a food thing. Nope. She’s like, Hey, I’d like to go to Fiji. She’s like, oh, I’m Fiji type type. You can’t go to Fiji. They’re all booked up for a month. I’m sorry. Do you want me to go ahead and book that? He’s like, no, no, thank you. And he goes to the bus station. I would like a ticket to Chicago. So he gets on the bus and the bus is selling it too hard. This bus is packed with people

Laci (00:43:55):

Crammed and no one’s looking at him except for in a weird way,

Matt (00:43:58):

Just this little girl who’s like, mommy is that shut up.

Laci (00:44:01):

And there aren’t that many kids, luckily. But I do wonder what it was like for him growing up and what are the ethics of that? He had to have had friends.

Matt (00:44:10):

Yeah. There were other kids. Yeah.

Laci (00:44:12):

Did him and his best friend grow up together? So has that guy literally been on the set as long as Truman? What is the commitment here? Or do people in his life change the way they look all the time? You look different,

Matt (00:44:22):

Maybe. So the bus driver doesn’t know what to do, so he just does a lot of gear shifting and he

Laci (00:44:27):

Doesn’t try makes

Matt (00:44:28):

Bus noises

Laci (00:44:28):

Doesn’t, right.

Matt (00:44:30):

And then he is like, I’m sorry, everybody get off. We have a problem. And Truman very sadly, stays on and he’s looking out the window, hopefully. And the bus driver feels really bad for him. And he is like, I’m sorry son,

Laci (00:44:43):

Because these are just people and you need a lot of people to make this work. So you are going to have people who watch him when they’re not on the set too. And they care about him too, and they see what he’s trying to do. And they’ve all been wondering when it would happen. And this little bird does want to leave the nest, and they’re all being asked to stop this natural thing. So I’m sure that man does feel really bad. I mean, clearly he does. And he probably got fired for it, honestly, because anyone that’s giving that much, you’re breaking the fourth wall.

Matt (00:45:13):

Yeah, he is in a later scene. But yeah, that probably does. Or at least they keep track of people. We only want people who are totally truly dismissive and can separate the art from the

Laci (00:45:24):

Artist. If we could clone Laura Lenny, we would.

Matt (00:45:26):

Absolutely. So Laura Lenny comes home from work and she’s had a day of it, and she’s like, Truman, and he’s just sitting in his car like a maniac, and he’s like, get in, get in. This is a long clip. I want to play this since this is audio only. We can just play a whole clip and we won’t get blocked on YouTube. I think they’re both so wonderful in this scene. I predict

Speaker 4 (00:45:50):

That in just a moment, we will see a lady on a red bike, followed by a man with flowers and a Volkswagen beetle with a dented fender.

Speaker 5 (00:46:02):

Truman,

Speaker 4 (00:46:03):

Please look.

Speaker 6 (00:46:10):

Lady flowers and Truman, this is silly there. It’s there. Did it Beetle? Yes. Don’t you want to know how I did that? I’ll tell you, they’re on a loop. They go around the block, they come back, they go

Speaker 5 (00:46:38):

Around again.

Speaker 6 (00:46:40):

They just go around and

Speaker 5 (00:46:42):

Red. I invited Rita and Marlon for a barbecue on Sunday. I’m going to make here my potato salad here, and I need you to remind me that we need more charcoal.

Speaker 6 (00:46:49):

Are you listening to a word?

Speaker 5 (00:46:52):

I’m saying? You’re upset because you want to go to Fiji? Is that it? Okay. Okay, go. I think you should save for a few months and then go there. You happy? Now I’m going to go take a shower.

Laci (00:47:13):

Have you even told her that he wanted to go to Fiji? Let’s go now.

Matt (00:47:17):

I’m ready.

Laci (00:47:19):

He seems to realize something there more deeply than what she’s saying.

Matt (00:47:24):

I feel like he’s probably been talking about it even before the movie started. But yeah, I guess we might not have seen him talk to her about it. So maybe it is like, how would you know about Fiji? But everybody’s talking to everybody, so obviously he’s doing his Jim Carrey thing, so wonderful. All the noises, the mania, but she’s like, you can see you’re trying all the tricks. Like an NPC has a script she’s going to go back to, but he’s like, don’t fuck it. Answer me. He’s like, okay, yes, let’s go to Fiji bought. And I don’t know, I love the two of them right there. So he takes off in the car and he’s like, let’s go to New Orleans. But he goes down, this goes down this street, but it’s full of cars. He’s like, damn, damn. Okay. So he backs

Laci (00:48:10):

Well orchestrated, don’t you think we’ll be sitting here for hours? Change of plans. And he goes around the roundabout again, a whole lot where they have no idea where he is going to go next. But smartly goes down the exact same street, all the cars are gone. Interesting.

Matt (00:48:27):

She’s just like, Truman, you’re not right in the head. You got to stop at players. But they get to the bridge that leads out of town, but he can’t go over it. She’s like, Truman, you knew this would happen. You know, can’t drive over water. Let’s go home where you’ll feel safe. And he takes her hand, puts it on the wheel, and just pits the gas and makes her steer and they make it over. But then outside of town still the obstacles come, oh, there’s a forest fire. But they just drive over it. And then there’s a nuclear power plant, there’s

Laci (00:48:56):

A leak.

Matt (00:48:57):

Oh, well before that, she’s like, but what are we going to do for money in New Orleans? He’s like, well, I have my Sea Haven bank card. And she’s like, we’re going to eat into our savings. Even the mentality about money is very old fashioned.

Laci (00:49:07):

That’s what I keep saying. Yeah,

Matt (00:49:08):

We have our savings account. Of course, honey, we wouldn’t want to accrue any debt obligations, but she’s just trying everything. She’s like, your mother’s going to feel really scared and bad. I might have to call her. But they drive by this nuclear power plant. And what Merrill says is, it looks like there’s a leak at the plant. And then a cop stops them and he’s like, sorry folks. There’s a leak at the plant. So they’re using the exact same

Speaker 7 (00:49:28):

Language.

Matt (00:49:29):

He’s like, you’ll have to turn around. Truman’s like, well, thank you officer. You’re welcome. Truman. And Jim Careys, just like

Laci (00:49:35):

I, he’s get fired.

Matt (00:49:36):

Truman and Laura Lenny’s looking at him in horror. She’s like, oh, he heard it. Fuck. He gets out of the car, runs into the woods, and where he is tackled by people in nuclear power plant costumes. But it’s funny, these are just actors. They’re like, oh no, I have to fight somebody. So we get back to my house and Meryl confronts Truman like, Hey, I think you’re having a psychotic episode. You’re not well. And he

Laci (00:49:59):

So fucked up,

Matt (00:50:00):

Says, lemme ask you something. Why do you want to have a baby with me? You can’t stand me. And she says, that’s not true. Now why don’t you let me fix some of this new Coco drink? But why is she, I mean,

Laci (00:50:12):

Why do that there?

Matt (00:50:13):

Yeah. This is why I don’t, ed Harris is telling everybody what to say all the time because it just seems to be like what she does. I

Laci (00:50:21):

Mean, but they’re still in damage control mode, right? Yeah. This is a really severe moment. They’re not just going to let her figure it out,

Matt (00:50:27):

But it’s weird that she would go into the ad read. I know. It’s just a joke. The point is he’s like, you’re not even responding to the very serious situation in front of me. You’re talking about Cocos, and she’s like, you’re having a nervous breakdown. She picks up that kitchen instrument implement that she was so excited about earlier, but he grabs it from her, holds it up to her neck, and she shouts. Do something.

Laci (00:50:48):

Who are you talking to? No one. Just like heli Do it. Seth,

Matt (00:50:53):

On severance. Yes. I had a moment just like this on the latest episode. Spoiler alert. But check out our severance recap show. Lumen is listening. And so she is very upset. And then Marlon comes into the house with a six pack of Brewski and she runs into his arms crying and she just says, how could anyone expect me to carry on in these conditions? It’s unprofessional. Unprofessional.

Laci (00:51:17):

I was going to have a professional baby with a briefcase.

Matt (00:51:20):

So

Laci (00:51:22):

Well, now the main character needs to be he’s shaken. He needs to be appeased in a big way. He needs to be right. He needs to be proven right in a big way. He needs to be distracted. So we go on the fucking bridge like always and have the brew skis. And I guess in this reality, they have a whole long, him and his best friend have a whole long, heartfelt conversation where at the end of it, for dramatic purposes, the best friend reveals. And you were right about something. It’s your dad. It’s like, was he just on the bridge alone this whole time? Fuck.

Matt (00:51:59):

Because everything has to be cinematic.

(00:52:02):

He can’t just be there with them. It has to be, but before he even does that, they’re having this heart to heart. And Marlon’s like, like I said earlier, he gives him the thing about things didn’t work out for either of us the way we thought they would, but now we cut away. Suddenly we hear Ed Harris’s voice for the first time since the beginning of the movie, we see a few faces we haven’t seen before. We see this woman, we see Paul Giamatti, and then we see Ed Harris himself and see that he’s literally feeding Marlin his lines.

Laci (00:52:29):

He’s even feeding when the lighting does what? When they zoom in on what?

Matt (00:52:33):

Well, that’s

Laci (00:52:34):

Later. I know. But you can assume he’s doing that. He’s a producer, he’s a director. He knows what’s going to look the most compelling.

Matt (00:52:42):

Well, because then the dad comes out and Truman goes to hug his dad and Paul Giamatti’s like, all right, we’re going to pull in now. And he’s like, no, no, no, no, no. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it now the music. And now. So he’s orchestrating all of this, the camera angles, the camera movements, the score, and they’re all just cheering because they successfully manipulated a very emotionally cathartic moment. And they’re all crying. They’re so happy with the work they did. And this is where I started thinking, this is Peter Weir saying, this is what a director does. It’s not just what you show. It’s how you show it. It’s how you move the camera. When you go to a wide, when you go to a closeup, when you bring in the music and then the

Laci (00:53:23):

At what time do you this in the character’s life,

Matt (00:53:27):

The network executive comes in, shakes his hand, go, we’re so Christophe, you’re doing such a marvelous job. But this is also what directors do. If a director does his job or her job, they just successfully come up with emotional moments for you, the audience, to feel for entirely fictional people. But it is kind of the same thing. And a weird thing to think about yourself is what I do for a living is force people to feel things about fake people.

Laci (00:53:52):

But what we do for a living is force people to use services or buy something or feel a way about a brand.

Matt (00:53:59):

Yeah, it’s fucked up.

Laci (00:54:00):

Market getting is fucked up.

Matt (00:54:01):

Yeah, we’re fucked up. We’re the villains.

Laci (00:54:04):

I know.

Matt (00:54:07):

So yeah, everybody’s very happy. And Philip Baker Hall is the network head. We see these security people who work for Ed Harris that have shirts on that say, love him, protect him. So this is where the Vertigo comparisons, I was thinking, Invertigo, spoiler alert for Vertigo, one of the best movies ever made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958. Jimmy Stewart plays a man. He’s a private eye, and he’s hired by his old friend and he’s like, Hey, Jimmy Stewart, my wife is going a little crazy. Could you follow her? Please, please do follow my crazy wife. So he follows her, and sure enough, she’s doing crazy things like going to sit at a museum and staring at the same painting for eight hours. Like, oh, there’s woman’s name N and then he follows her to the San Francisco Bay, and she jumps in like she’s going to kill herself. So he has to jump in after her, and then he takes her back to his apartment where they then fall in love.

Laci (00:54:56):

But

Matt (00:54:56):

She’s still nuts. She’s still going crazy and eventually

Laci (00:54:59):

Great. She loves paintings, loves the water.

Matt (00:55:00):

They go to a bell tower where she seemingly jumps to her death. And Jimmy Stewart is very distraught over this. Now, we cut to a year or so later, Jimmy Stewart’s walking down the street and sees a woman who looks exactly like the woman, Madeline was her name, who he was paid to follow. And he’s like, you’re her, you’re her. And she’s like, no, Mr. I’ve never seen you before. I don’t know what’s going on. And he is like, no, have dinner with me. And she reluctantly accepts, and then he leaves her alone, but the camera stays with her. And now the perspective shifts. Now you’re with this woman for the rest of the movie. And she reveals she was the woman he fell in love with. She was paid to play this part, paid to be this woman so that Jimmy Stewart could provide an alibi that this guy wanted to kill his wife. So we never actually met the real wife, but Jimmy Stewart fell in love with this woman who was playing a role specifically designed to make him fall in love with her. And now for the rest of the movie, what she’s trying to do, because she feels guilty and because she loves him, is I will become that fake woman to please you and to not let you figure out what happened. And that’s why I was making the comparison, because at this point, the movie kind of hands off to Ed Harris. It’s now his perspective,

Speaker 3 (00:56:10):

The

Matt (00:56:10):

Rest of the movie. And the mission he has for the rest of the movie is we need to keep Truman contained, and we need to do that by continuing to double down to reinforce the fake reality we have. And Vertigo is also about meta commentary on filmmakers and what they do. And now it’s all about manipulating the audience to have all these fake feelings. Then we have a TV special.

Laci (00:56:33):

Oh, now it’s like people want to talk to the creator of the Truman Show because a lot of things have been happening with Truman, and they just, why bring the dad back in? Why take him out? I don’t really remember what they talk about, but they’re just basically questioning the, what’s your morals around this? Why even keep doing this? And are you going to keep him in?

Matt (00:56:57):

Yeah. And I guess answer questions that the audience have had. Like, okay, how does this fucking work? Where is this anyway? Well, it’s in a giant dome just north of Hollywood in Burbank.

Laci (00:57:10):

Didn’t you see it? It’s fucking huge. You can see it from space,

Matt (00:57:13):

But it’s presumably in Burbank. That’s why his name is Truman Burbank. And you know how you keep seeing the moon? That’s actually the base where the control room is. And he’s being interviewed. Ed Harris is being interviewed by Harry Shearer, who’s doing his Seymour Skinner, Kent Brockman voice. I have an exclusive interview with Christophe and at Christophe, in addition to seeming a director also kind of carries himself like a magician, like a David Copperfield. And they’re like, people have broken onto the set, and there’ve been close calls in the past. Somebody parachuted in one time, but Truman didn’t notice. But it seems the father has now snuck back onto the set. But we’ve managed to, I don’t know, hire him again.

Laci (00:57:59):

We isolated the problem. We found out that he was upset that he had gotten written off. And it’s like, okay, so the most trivial, petty reason why you would do this, and why take this long to do it? Why do you look this way? Why did you come on as a weirdly dressed person instead of someone who looks like the rest of the people in the town?

Matt (00:58:18):

Yeah. Why do she,

Laci (00:58:20):

Is this man actually crazy? I mean, they bring the dad on in a very dramatic way, and then we spend almost no time with that.

Matt (00:58:27):

That is my major problem. If I have one with the movie, it’s kind of a dead end.

Laci (00:58:32):

This dad thing completely. We don’t find out where he is been this whole time. We don’t find out what links do you guys go to manipulate Truman? Tell us what you’re going to say about this very weird thing that’s happening.

Matt (00:58:44):

And it goes nowhere after this. It’s never even brought up

Laci (00:58:47):

Again. You see him one more time.

Matt (00:58:50):

But we were saying this on our severance show that if someone outside is a threat, just pay them to work for you. And they will, 99% of people will, they need money or they’re flattered. Oh yeah. I’d love to have my role on the show again. Okay, great. So Sylvia calls, well, first there’s a joke where they’re like, we have a call now from the Hague. The Hague. You’re on with Christophe the Hague. The Hague doesn’t. The Hague is where the international criminal court is. That’s the joke. So then Sylvia calls and talks to Christophe, and they have a sort of annoying back and

Laci (00:59:20):

Forth, oh, we know this voice, we do. You know her voice. And then, yeah,

Matt (00:59:26):

It’s like what gives you the right to imprison a person? He is like, I’ve given him the perfect life. The real world is the sick place. Sea havens the world as it should be. And he says the crucial thing, he’s like, Truman could leave anytime he wants. If it was more than a vague ambition. If he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s nothing we could do to prevent him. And this is liar. This is like what dictators say.

Laci (00:59:51):

Yes.

Matt (00:59:52):

They’re like, listen, if the people weren’t happy with me being in control of the country, they could rise up in a violently overthrow me.

Laci (00:59:57):

They’d have to be okay with maybe dying. And so does Truman. Truman almost fucking dies to discover this.

Matt (01:00:04):

Yeah, abusive people say this, if you really had a problem with it, you get out and they tease. Christophe teases new plot developments. Truman’s wife is going to leave him, and he’s going to find a new love. And then there’s that really great shot where we have the giant shot of Truman sleeping. And Ed Harris walks over and pets him, pets his nose.

Laci (01:00:27):

And now Truman has, we don’t know this yet, but he has developed a plan. He’s getting the fuck out of here, but he pretends to be back to his old normal self and does a special little fake moon landing thing in the mirror. And after it, he says, and that one was for free, or something like that.

Matt (01:00:48):

And he winks at the camera

Laci (01:00:49):

And it’s like, I know you’re fucking watching.

Matt (01:00:52):

But Paul Giani in the control room’s like Truman’s back to himself. Great.

Laci (01:00:56):

And we don’t watch him. Do

Matt (01:01:00):

We just watch him go through his normal day being exactly like he was at the beginning of the movie

Laci (01:01:06):

Fooling us too.

Matt (01:01:07):

Yes. But then that night, they’re like, yeah, he moved down here to the basement. Now that Meryl has left him, he’s asleep on that cot. But Ed Harris comes in and he’s like, nobody told me he changed his bedroom. I’m like, well, it didn’t seem like it was a big deal, but Ed Harris is suspicion. He’s like suspicious. And he’s like, let’s review the tape. And he goes through the whole day and he’s like, what’s that enhance? That’s a foot under the dresser. So they send Marlin in and he is like, Truman, I’m here with some Brewski.

Laci (01:01:32):

Truman, what time is it? It’s 4:00 AM.

Matt (01:01:36):

He pulls the blanket out from the bed and it’s a snowman in the bed. What the fuck? And he goes and opens the closet and sees a tunnel that Truman has built. A Truman is Shawshank redemption to himself. He’s pulled a Ferris Bueller and Andy Dufrene in the same scene, and he’s dug a tunnel up to the lawn. And then Ed Harris is cut transmission. And so they cut transmission for the first time in 30 years. And we see the bar and a bartender drops a glass, and you hear somebody in the crowd shout, good God in heaven.

Laci (01:02:06):

And interesting that they had this graphic ready if they’ve never actually had to fucking use it.

Matt (01:02:10):

You got to be prepared for everything. That’s

Laci (01:02:12):

True. And now there’s a nation. Now they’re just like, fuck it. We’re totally prepared to blow this shit wide open because it makes no sense why the entire town is looking for him shoulder to shoulder. He is not a child. He’s a grown ass man. He can leave whenever he wants to.

Matt (01:02:27):

I think though, if they find him, they’re going to be like, you see how much everyone cares about you, Truman trying to make it like it’s a wonderful life or something. See, no one has to leave. When you have all these friends,

Laci (01:02:38):

Who knows how they’re going to spin it, but in the meantime, they look crazy. They’re saying things that are very casual that are breaking the fourth wall. What is he up to? Now they’re discussing him. He’s not their friend or family.

Matt (01:02:52):

And Philip Baker Hall is yelling at Christophe. He’s like, the sponsors are on my ass. And he’s like, why? This technical difficulties? Graphics has gotten us better ratings than ever. Everybody in the world is now tuning in. What the hell? But Ed Harris finally realizes, I know where he is. He’s on a boat on the ocean.

Laci (01:03:06):

They find him. We’ve created the perfect cover for him because it’s the one place he knows we wouldn’t look.

Matt (01:03:11):

Yes, resume transmission. The whole world is now watching him on the boat. And then Ed Harris, the director, is like, go to the cabin cam. Perfect. That’s our hero shot. Hero shot. And Jim Carrey does look like a goddamn hero sailing this boat. So they’re like, get somebody on the ferry to chase after him. And there’s a funny moment. No one knows how the fuck on the bus driver. No one knows how to drive it. Why not? Because they’re actors,

Laci (01:03:36):

Right? So there’s not any, I mean, you have this whole thing where people can get on the water, but you have no safety precautions in place. You have no emergency dinghy that can go help someone if they go in the water. And I don’t

Matt (01:03:50):

Know. So what can we do to stop him? Ed Harris and Paul Giani, they turn on Laci’s least favorite thing, A squall

Laci (01:03:57):

Fucking hate a squall. God damnit. They’re, wait, do they turn the lights on yet?

Matt (01:04:02):

They already did that.

Laci (01:04:03):

Oh, okay. They turned the sun on.

Matt (01:04:04):

They turned the sun on.

Laci (01:04:05):

They’ve completely given up on trying to pretend that this is not fake, even though it’s two

Matt (01:04:09):

In the morning right now. Right? Very jarring. Once we turn on the weather, he’ll get too scared and he’ll turn back. But he’s not. He’s fighting valiantly. And the people watch at home as he gets tossed around on the high seas and they’re cheering. We keep seeing the guy in his bathtub watching the tv. It always stresses me out to see this guy in the bathtub.

Laci (01:04:27):

But he, there’s something deep down in him that he knows they can’t kill me. I don’t know what it is about me, but in his head, I think he’s thinking, I’m just going to keep going. They can’t kill me. This is all about me. Now. I mean, ed Harris gets way too close. I mean, he very well could have, any of this could have killed him. And they have no one to come out there and save him.

Matt (01:04:48):

And in fact, Jim Carrey did nearly drown filming this.

Laci (01:04:51):

Oh my God.

Matt (01:04:51):

So they had divers. This is all in a tank, but it’s still very dangerous. And they have divers, and he has a hand signal that he’s supposed to give if he gets in trouble, but they couldn’t tell he was giving it. They thought it was just the normal way somebody was moving. So he was very upset about that. But it’s a very intense scene. And he shouts, is that the best you can do? You’re going to have to kill me. So Ed Harris is like, all right. Now he’s the angry parent who’s like, you think you’re so smart, Missy. Well fuck you. Turns up the storm to 11. And finally he’s like, fuck it. He’s done it. He’s withstood the storm. So turned back on the good weather, smooth sailing up ahead, and it’s all so cool. He’s just very serenely

Speaker 7 (01:05:36):

Floating

Matt (01:05:36):

To, he doesn’t know where, but he’s made past the danger. And then just the most amazing thing, suddenly the boat casts a shadow into the sky and the boat crashes into the background, bumps into the wall, the mask goes through the wall. And he plays this so well, Jim Carrey, he gets out, he looks at the wall, and he very, very carefully touches it, sees that it’s solid, and he just goes, oh, because he’s validated. Finally, he knows. He knows for sure. He has proof. So he tries to punch through it, and then he gets out of the boat and realizes he can walk alongside the wall. And it looks like he’s walking on water

Laci (01:06:10):

And he finds a set of stairs, which you got to think, are these every one mile apart? How many sets are these lucky where he landed?

Matt (01:06:20):

Yeah. That’s an izi rule.

Laci (01:06:23):

Oh, union. Got it. I made the brilliant observation that this fucking dome is on top of, it’s above Los Angeles, and they have a full fucking sea. And he pokes a hole.

Matt (01:06:38):

This is up in the hills. Yeah. This is bad.

Laci (01:06:40):

He almost caused a landslide, guys a mudslide or whatever he’s going to, you ever see videos of someone just popping their backyard pool on accident, just a regular aboveground pool? That shit floods the neighborhood.

Matt (01:06:53):

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:06:54):

Absolutely. Imagine this.

Matt (01:06:56):

Yeah. For all two people who have seen the Latvian animated movie flow, which is nominated for best animated feature, the flood in that movie is actually caused by Truman Bar Bank. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):

Oh, okay.

Matt (01:07:05):

Thank you. So he’s about to, he climbs the stairs and sees there’s a door with exit on it. He opens it, he’s about to go through, and then all of a sudden, ed Harris speaks to him.

Laci (01:07:14):

Fuck it.

Matt (01:07:14):

Truman,

Laci (01:07:15):

This is your dad,

Matt (01:07:16):

Truman, who are you? I’m the creator of a television show. And he’s like, well, who am I? You’re the star. And he is a star because, well, first it’s like, was nothing real? And then Harris says, you were real. That’s what made you so good to watch. But I just want you to know this world I’ve created for you or the world out there, it’s no more real than the world in here, but it’s full of lies and deceit. We’re in here, everything’s good, and you will always be safe.

Laci (01:07:46):

And it’s full of lies and deceit

Matt (01:07:49):

The fuck. But he’s also saying, but I know you’re not going to go through that door because I know you better than you know yourself. And Truman then says, you never had a camera in my head. I love that

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):

Line.

Matt (01:07:58):

He’s like, no, you’re afraid. That’s why you won’t leave. But Truman is afraid, but he will leave. Anyway,

Laci (01:08:04):

Heavy handed again, the whole fucking time. You’ve been making moves that are too heavy handed, and you overplayed your cards right here, sir. Don’t tell him what he is. He’s defiant. You tell him what he is and he is going to do the opposite. Do you not know him at all? Creator?

Matt (01:08:20):

Yeah. You’re making the mistakes that parents make because he then lays on the parent thing on, he’s like, I’ve been watching you since you were born. I was there and took your first step.

Laci (01:08:27):

Who asked you to?

Matt (01:08:28):

You belong here with me. This is like, yeah, if I am, I am your parent. I owe you.

Laci (01:08:34):

Brought you into this world,

Matt (01:08:35):

Right? He’s like, well, talk to me. Say something. You’re on television. You’re live to the whole world. And Jim Carrey looks at the camera, and Truman is naturally just a star. He’s got the Riz, and he perfectly delivers his catchphrase. Okay, so you don’t see you. Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.

Laci (01:08:53):

He’s been taught, he’s a fucking stage. He’s a stage kid. He’s been handled by his mom to be just the perfect little good boy. That’s why all of his actions are so put on. He’s like big overdramatic. He’s been trained to give the camera what the camera

Matt (01:09:11):

Wants. Yes. But now when he’s giving you the thing you don’t want, he does it in the most impressive, dramatic way. It’s like how so many activists you find out were we’re theater kids because you

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):

Need it.

Matt (01:09:22):

Yes. That’s how you translate. You have to learn these things. You have to learn how to get over on the crowd. And he steps through the door, and then we cut to the outside world. Sylvia’s running down the stairs and putting on her coat. She’s going to go run to the dome.

Laci (01:09:34):

I like that. They don’t show it.

Matt (01:09:35):

Absolutely.

Laci (01:09:36):

Yeah. And that’s it.

Matt (01:09:38):

Ed Harris takes off his glasses. Very sadly. He’s going to have to start from scratch, season two with a new person.

Laci (01:09:43):

And that whole fucking world just lost their job.

Matt (01:09:46):

That’s true. No,

Laci (01:09:48):

You just tanked the economy.

Matt (01:09:49):

Yeah, they’re going to try, try. Joe Millionaire tried a second season, but it just wasn’t the same without the first Joe Millionaire. Thanks. And then the last shot of the movie is just the two security guards. Who was like, what else is on, I don’t know, tv. God, that’s it. That’s the movie.