|
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Sally Kirkland, Martin Landau,
Dennis Hopper, Rob Reiner, Ellen DeGeneres, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, Donny Most, Viveka
Davis, Adam Goldberg. Directed by Ron Howard.
True TV is a little cable network which on the roster of the Northwest Broadcasting TV Network. It's ratings are so bad that it's being beaten by the gardening channel. Cynthia Topping (DeGeneres) has cooked up an idea where she'll find some ordinary guy and put his entire life on screen 24 hours-a-day, live, unedited and unscripted. Her network executive boss (Reiner) thinks the idea isn't very good, and hints if it fails, her butt is out the door. She goes to find candidates in San Francisco, and finds displaced Texan Ray Perkurny (Woody Harrelson) who is a natural, and not very bright, ham. Recently engaged to Shari (Elfman), he drags his reluctant fiance in front of the camera, and then his charming younger brother Ed (McConaughey). Cynthia sees something in Ed, and offers him the chance to star in a show about his life. His family including mom (Kirkland), sister (Davis) and stepdad (Landau) don't think it's really a good idea, but Ray thinks it's a no-brainer, since he can get free exposure for his new gym business idea. Well the show starts off with the camera crew in his bedroom catching a "morning chubby", Ed getting ready to go to work, and Ed spending a boring day there at the video store. But as the days go by, things start happening. Ray cheats on Cynthia, and Cynthia and Ed discover that an attraction they had for the other is very mutual. And his Dad (Hopper) comes back into the picture, and a lot of family secrets and dirty laundry is aired out. And Jill (Hurley), a gorgeous model looking for a career boost, puts the moves on Ed and sends the ratings soaring. And there's of course a pretty predictable happy ending. Ed TV does a pretty good job in showing the intrusive nature of television into the lives it comes into contact with, how the media callously exploits unwilling subjects to sell shows or newspapers , and how people will mindlessly gravitate to anyone possessing celebrity. The movie is occasionally funny, but the humour is broad and obvious, avoiding satire to a large degree. Inviting comparison to the excellent Truman Show, it falls way short. Truman was oblivious to the fact he was on TV, and the movie indicted both the medium's need to grab ratings and invade privacy, and the audiences' willingness to share in that exploitation with its lack of self-control in not being able to turn the channel. Ed TV seems to make the point, well sure TV is an exploitive device that will manipulate and use whomever it can to make a buck, but it is natural we will all keep watching to see how the show ends. Time after time, we see recurring shots of audience members being engrossed in the show, and rooting for or against the actions of the characters. Not once does any of them ever question whether they should be watching someone else's misery or whether these things should be private. As Cynthia says, everyone abhors a car wreck, but you can't help looking back at it. And that seems to be all right - it's human nature. For example, Ed has no problem talking to his mom about why his father left the family, including their affairs and painfull memories. And Shari leaves Ed, telling him she can't take spending her romantic and private moments on television anymore. When she comes back to see him, Ed tells her they broke up, not because of their loss of privacy - they've both had bad relationships and breakups before being on TV - but because she's just scared of getting hurt again. And of course she falls for it. But she had it right the first time. Too many people are way too anxious to display their failings, their feelings and their private matters on TV and in public. And the great failing of this movie is that it pretty much thinks it's OK. As a product of TV and Hollywood, I guess Ron Howard is not the one we can expect to attack television. But could he have at least pretended to be indicting the industry, instead of including the most product placements I've seen in a long time. Heck, he even has Ed wearing a Wonder Bread shirt. What kind of guy would wear a Wonder Bread shirt? I secretly hope he was placing all these ads in the movie as a subversive criticism of the commercial corruption of TV and entertainment, but the way it was done, I seriously doubt it. The story is quite predictable, and it's presented in quite a manipulative manner, where the audience response shots are continually shown to tell us how we should feel. There are numerous openings provided for satiric comment or something in-depth, but these openings are rarely explored. The cast, culled mostly from television, is quite good. McConaughey and Harrelson look like brothers, and display great charm and chemistry. Elfman is the perfect girl-next-door, subtly showing her growing love for Ed, and her growing frustration over having her life dissected in the media. Landau is quite funny, and has many of the movie's best lines. Too bad they're in a bad movie.  
|