A different take on satirising Western obsession with TV voyeurism than The Truman Show. A TV producer (DeGeneres) in need of a ratings winner, births the idea of cameras following the daily comings and goings of everyday loser Ed (McConaughey), and soon America is obsessed with the machinations of his life and family. Soon the constant televising becomes inconvenient, intrusive and corrupting, like the scientific axiom that we affect an outcome just by observing it.

Ed becomes a megastar, something his new love (Elfman, gorgeous and vulnerable) can't live with and which affects all his relationships. Things become a mess (including the plot, which doesn't seem to know what it wants to be) and the climax, while funny, didn't really seem to belong. Together with the rambling storyline, it's hard to pin down what the movie was saying – whether it was a warning about our obsession with reality TV, the loss of privacy of the individual in society, or the impact of TV generally.

A great supporting cast with all the best one liners saved for Ed's stepfather (Laundau), and the story shows great attention to detail (the constant advertising window at the bottom of the screen goes from showing cheap local restaurants to the likes of Motorola as the show takes off). Good fun and some great actors, but not as biting as it seems to have wanted to be.