ED-TV

The very recent success of The Truman Show has irreparably blighted ED-TV's chances of cleaning up at the box office, largely due to the fact that it's a variation on the very same film: a telly company films the life of an ordinary Joe Bloggs, the public go mad for it, the star himself slowly cracks up under the strain. ED-TV, however, may well be the superior film.

I saw it months ago with a monstrous hangover and found it heartily annoying, so loud, in-your-face and quintessentially American was the tone of the whole thing. I saw it again yesterday and recognised it for what it was: a funny, moving, and deceptively intelligent deconstruction of the entire American trash-telly phenomenon, acted to perfection by a well-chosen cast.

If the film it isn't necessarily as good as The Truman Show, it's certainly a whole lot funnier. Appealing dumb-hick everyman Ed (McConaghey, in inspired comic form) willingly agrees to have his entire life filmed by a TV company whose ratings are flagging. From day one, the show strikes a chord with Yank audiences: the camera does everything short of following Ed into the bathroom, and his every family fall-out and romantic/sexual encounter becomes material for mass public consumption. His brother (Harrelson, completely in character) pens a tome entitled My Brother Pissed On Me. Liz Hurley sends herself up as a rabid English slut (no, really?), Dennis Hopper chips in a class cameo as Ed's estranged father, Ellen DeGeneres is quite brilliant as the mastermind behind the entire programme, and the film's closing half-hour is infinitely more poignant and telling than you'd dare to hope.

This is top-drawer trash entertainment which, when you reflect on it, isn't trash at all: there is way more to ED-TV than meets the eye. Check it out.