Video store clerk Ed agrees to have his life filmed by a camera crew for a tv network.
Acting
McConaughey's full-commitment earnestness sells the absurd premise.
Writing
Lowell Ganz's script sneaks existential dread into sitcom beats.
Direction
Ron Howard finds humanity in the manufactured spectacle.
Director
Ron Howard
Matthew McConaughey
Ed 'Eddie' Pekurny
Woody Harrelson
Ray Pekurny
Sally Kirkland
Jeanette
Jenna Elfman
Shari
Martin Landau
Al
Ellen DeGeneres
Cynthia Topping
Rob Reiner
Mr. Whitaker
Dennis Hopper
Henry 'Hank' Pekurny
Elizabeth Hurley
Jill
Adam Goldberg
John
Viveka Davis
Marcia
Clint Howard
Ken
Geoffrey Blake
Keith
Gail Boggs
Wife
Jenna Byrne
Felicia
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released five months before Big Brother premiered in the Netherlands, making it eerily prescient about reality TV's explosion.
The film bombed because audiences found the premise too unbelievable — then spent the next decade making it mundane.
US
