“You never had a camera in my head.”

The Truman Show (1998), directed by Peter Weir, is a sci-fi-drama film that (quite literally) follows the life of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey). Since he was in utero, Truman has unknowingly been filmed by hidden cameras, 24 hours a day, for the whole world to see. Over the span of 30 years, audiences witness his first steps, his father’s (Brian Delate) death, his marriage to Meryl (Laura Linney), and his somewhat monotonous everyday life in Seahaven. But when a light used on film sets mysteriously falls from the sky, and Truman encounters who he believes to be his dead father, he begins to wonder if life in Seahaven is not as it seems. 

You may be asking, “Why would she write a mystery fiction review about a sci-fi film?” Although it is labeled as such, I believe The Truman Show comfortably fits within Robert Heinlein’s definition of speculative fiction, and thus somewhat challenges the mystery fiction genre as we understood it until Module 7. In his essay “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction,” Heinlein writes

“There is another type of honest-to-goodness science fiction story that is not usually regarded as science fiction: the story of people dealing with contemporary science or technology. We do not ordinarily mean this sort of story when we say ‘science fiction’; what we do mean is the speculative story, the story of embodying the notion ‘Just suppose –’ or ‘What would happen if –.’ In the speculative science fiction story accepted science and established fiefs are extrapolated to produce a new situation, a new framework for human action. As a result of this new situation, new human problems are created – and our story is about how human beings cope with those new problems.”

Furthermore, as we learned in Module 7, speculative fiction sometimes pushes the boundaries of multiple genres at the same time. The Truman Show certainly pushes the boundaries of science fiction because it is speculative fiction, but it also pushes the boundaries of mystery fiction because the “mystery” Truman is trying to solve is his life. In many ways, he is like a detective – as he starts picking up on inconsistencies in his life, he tries to find “clues” by talking to his friends and family, changing his daily routine in little ways, and attempting to leave Seahaven.

The Truman Show embodies Heinlein’s “What would happen if –” notion by asking “What would happen if a person’s entire life was fabricated and live-streamed for the entire world to watch?” Christof (Ed Harris), the director and creator of “The Truman Show,” takes an accepted science, television and livestream technology, and manipulates it to an extreme degree. This creates a mystery for Truman to solve – why do these unexplainable events keep happening to him and only him? – and an ethical dilemma for viewers to ponder – is it right for Truman to be the center of a television show that he has no knowledge of? – blurring the lines between and pushing the boundaries of the science and mystery fiction genres.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like this film. I’d recommend it to everyone, especially those taking this course as it relates to some of what we’ve learned in very subtle and fun ways!

Heinlein, Robert A. “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction.” Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy: 20 Dynamic Essays by the Field’s Top Professionals, 15 February 1993, https://staging.paulrosejr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/on_the_writing_of_speculative_ficiton.pdf. Accessed 14 July, 2023.