Before he went batS**T crazy and started harassing politicians in order to remain relevant while simultaneously having films go straight to DVD, Jim Carey had a string of wildly successful films. A vast majority of them were the slapstick comedies the he earns his real money for, but a few were mixed in there that toyed with the idea that Carey is capable of acting outside of the comedy genre. This was one of those films and I thought it was great.
By the way the movie poster's image was made entirely with very small pictures of Jim Carey in order to make one giant Jim Carey (I have no idea what this sort of art is called) and it cost the studio $75,000 to make this.
The plot of the movie is Truman Burbank (Jim Carey) and how he is the star of a reality show that he doesn't know he is on. There are hundreds of cameras in every part of his life that he doesn't know are there, including in very personal moments of his life such as when he is in the bathroom.
Everyone in his life is an actor, including his wife, his parents, and his friends. They are all in on it for ratings. Everything in his life is a lie and he goes through the motions 24-hours a day to a worldwide audience. It is meant to be a wildly popular show and therefore many people attempt to break the illusion and invade the massive studio in an attempt to tell Truman the truth. All of these people are stopped.
Every attempt that Truman makes to go towards the edge of his town which is an island (as space is limited) is intercepted by various roadblocks like fake radiation hazards, road construction, or forest fires.
I don't want to reveal too much of the film because even though I think many of Jim's attempts at non-comedies fall very flat, this is one of the handful of ones that I thought was a triumphant success.
A vast majority of the world agreed with me also, as the critics generally gave favorable reviews and the film made over 200 million dollars globally. Jim is fantastic in this and so is Laura Linney, who plays his fake wife. This is likely on my personal list of top 50 favorite films ever.