THE TRUMAN SHOW (Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Jim Carrey, Ed Haris, Laura Linney).

HAVE YOU ever had the feeling that your life is so strange it has to be a movie over which you have no control, a surreal, nightmarish Kafkaesque black comedy conceived and directed by a paranoid schizophrenic with a sense of humour? Yep, me too.

In Jim Carrey’s first serious ‘artistic’ role, his central character Truman Burbank is the hero/victim of a gigantically elaborate universal hoax which casts him as the unwitting subject of a non-stop, round-the-clock TV show (appropriately entitled The Truman Show) to which people are tuned worldwide, riveted by his every deed and movement.

It’s a fascinating premise for a movie, and for the most part, The Truman Show is as compelling as it promises to be, thanks in no small measure to Jim Carrey’s uncharacteristically toned-down and restrained performance. It’s hardly Academy Award standard, but Carrey does expand enormously on his repertoire with The Truman Show, ditching his usual hyperactive custard-pie slapstick in favour of a silently-fuming demeanour that conveys bewilderment, exasperation and extreme frustration – emotions which his scrunched-up face is ideally suited to convey. The net result is that Carrey’s character ends up enlisting the genuine affection of every viewer in the house – incredible really, given the baggage of visceral hatred that any right-minded person who sat through Liar Liar will justifiably feel towards the guy.

Every one of the people in Truman’s life is secretly a Truman Show actor fitted with a hidden body camera, and the concept is ingeniously handled, with Ed Harris chipping in his finest performance in aeons as the manipulative mastermind behind the entire hoax. Laura Linney is terrifyingly wholesome as the clingy ‘Honey I’m home’ wife who serves as Truman’s principal jailor, while a girl called Natascha McElhone provides wonderfully soulful support as the once-in-a-lifetime could-have-been lover whose untimely move to Fiji awakens a dormant wanderlust in Truman that eventually drives him, literally, to the ends of the earth (you’ll see what I mean by ‘literally’ and shudder).

Not the least amazing thing about The Truman Show is that, as a side bonus, director Weir renders it more visually breathtaking than the last dozen or so summer blockbusters combined. (And God will surely reward him handsomely some day for getting Carrey to shut up and chill out). Throw in a healthy dollop of mildly black humour, a refreshing refusal to spell everything out for the audience, a sporadically hilarious script, and you’re left with an illuminating slice of Hollywood film-making at its most subversive: The Truman Show is big-budget entertainment for thinking people.