`TRUMAN SHOW' A MARVELOUS TWO-WAY MIRROR.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

The shadow of an arm tentatively reaches across a plain, white wall, which looks like nothing so much as an otherwise blank screen. The real arm casting the shadow enters the frame and the fingertips meet.

A simple enough shot. But a particularly eloquent one, coming as it does toward the end of ``The Truman Show.'' The image sums up the tensions between illusion and reality, seeing and believing, cozy reassurance and stark exploitation, that this unusually rich Hollywood production adroitly examines from its first exquisitely composed frame to this one and beyond.

A triumphant change of pace for Jim Carrey and the finest realization of director Peter Weir's inquisitive approach to filmmaking, ``The Truman Show'' is a marvel of artful, intelligent entertainment. More, it's as complete a movie as it can possibly be.

A hugely amusing satire of television's growing influence on our lives, the film also serves up deep thoughts on the medium's psychological effects. It's sunny and pretty with a tone that's souffle light - its form mimics the kind of reassuring programming the show within the movie lampoons - and that makes the dark implications roiling under the contrived warmth all the more unsettling.

That's just one part of an apt and imaginative visual plan that's all about viewing and being viewed. The movie even unfolds with an unerring sense of what needs to be shown or explained, and when.

And like most great films, ``Truman'' not only involves the audience, but implicates us as well. It asks just what the hell we think we're doing, peeking into other people's lives and judging the entertainment value thereof. Then it makes us question how much we sacrifice every time we opt for a fake, media-manufactured emotion in place of a real experience.

Cutting way back on the contortions, Carrey is middle American innocence personified as Truman Burbank. But even though he lives in the outlandishly clean and picturesque coastal town of Seahaven (filmed, frighteningly, in the actual, planned community of Seaside, Fla.), his doofy neighborliness is not the bland stuff of '50s sitcoms. He's more like ``It's a Wonderful Life's'' George Bailey, a decent, pleasant fellow who's nonetheless being eaten up inside by the notion that his comforting, conformist life is missing something vital.

That's because, though Truman doesn't know it, every moment of that picture-perfect life is being manipulated from the outside. Adopted before birth by a corporation, Truman's entire existence has been broadcast to the world for 30 years. Seahaven is a set inside the world's largest soundstage. The ``sea'' around it, the ``sky'' above, the very atmosphere - like everything that happens to Truman - is controlled by Christof (Ed Harris), the creator of the greatest show on Earth, and a man so serenely drunk with power he isn't even aware of his own malevolence.

Truman's every move is captured by 5,000 hidden cameras and microphones (we, unlike his billions of addicted TV fans, are spared the grosser bodily functions). His lifelong best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich) always appears with a sixpack of beer, one of the endless product placements that pay the show's bills. Marlon listens sympathetically to Truman's growing misgivings, but like everyone else, he's a paid actor who has been lying to Truman his whole life.

So is Meryl (Laura Linney), Truman's nurturing and accommodating, um, wife, who offers sex and satisfying consumer goods whenever he gets that wild hair to run off to Fiji (the sequel will just have to tell us what her contract negotiations were like).

She's not the only thing keeping Truman down on the picket-fenced farm. For example, Seahaven's travel agency, bright and cheerful as every other place and person Truman knows, is subtly designed to scare anyone off the idea of ever leaving home.

Because, of course, if Truman ever gets into the wider world, the show is over. As he blindly but inexorably moves in this direction, Christof starts thinking rewrite. And hey, if all of those people tuned into ``Seinfeld's'' last gasp, what kind of ratings will the death of Mr. Television himself generate?

Though it's being touted as Carrey's dramatic breakthrough, Truman is, quite rightly, as stylized a creation as Ace Ventura or The Mask. Carrey and Weir, as well as writer Andrew Niccol (``Gattaca''), understand that someone raised in a completely falsified environment will not behave like anybody we've ever known. The great thing about Carrey's endearingly geeky performance is that it is also expresses pain, fear and longing that we can all empathize with.

And unless you've been numbed by watching too much television for too long, you'll realize that that very fulfilling, enjoyable feeling of empathy is one of the things ``The Truman Show'' is warning us about.

Critics toss around the word complex as an almost catchall superlative for anything we like. ``The Truman Show'' is one of a few, special movies that is not only brimming with complexity, but forces us to respond to it in multiple ways on many levels. It may not be the easiest way to feel good at the movies, but boy, is that ever entertainment.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Truman Show'' (PG).

The stars: Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone.

Behind the scenes:Directed by Peter Weir. Written by Andrew Niccol. Produced by Scott Rudin, Edward S. Feldman, Adam Schroeder and Niccol. Released by Paramount Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 44 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Four Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) doesn't know it, but his entire life has been manipulated for television.