There's a cable station that is doing so badly they decide to do something different (presumably after watching The Truman Show) and put someone's life on air. The person they pick is Ed Pekurny (McConaughey), who's never amounted to anything much-he's still a video store clerk who never went to college. But Ed has a thing for his brother's current girlfriend Shari (Elfman), and they're about to fall for each other on air. Soon the entire country is (naturally) watching, and the attention begins to drive Shari away. Not entirely co-incidentally, enter Elizabeth Hurley as the femme fatale.

Ron Howard, who directed, knows how to craft a watchable movie, even if he and the script manage to duck any real exploration of putting someone's life on TV-it's mostly a romantic fable. The characters are largely simple, although many are played with gleeful zest that covers for some of this, such as Martin Landau as Ed's decrepit step father, or Rob Reiner as the odious TV executive. The most interesting may be Elfman-this is, after all, the woman who plays the unnaturally bubbly Dharma from 'Dharma and Greg', and who does rather a good job with a completely different character.

Some movies are unquestionably brilliant, capable of pulling you into their world or posing the fundamental questions of 'the human condition'. Others are harmless pieces of fluff, but pleasant to experience. EdTV falls into the latter category.

The opening scene says it all-a guy having sex with his girlfriend stops abruptly when he sees the incredible surf outside the window. He leaps off her and sprints out to the surf with his board and wetsuit.

Lee (played by director Lee Rogers) is a Bondi surfer dude who is about to get married to Joanne (cameo role by Kate Fischer), but he's having second thoughts. Settling down into married life goes completely against the grain of his peer group, a group of hedonistic Bondi surfers who spend most of their time either surfing, boozing, scoring or screwing. When Lee hears a grubby rumour that is circulating about his fianc his panic heightens. This film, the director's first, was shot on a microscopic budget and most actors were mates of the director portraying themselves; their tongue-in-cheek Australian sense of humour will either delight or offend you. The storyline is a bit lightweight but still manages to be entertaining. As the film progresses and the wedding day draws nearer the characters try to reason and moralise with each other the virtues of living a clean-cut life, as they meanwhile continue to get pissed and stoned and go surfing. Kate Ceberano (Rogers' real-life wife) plays the agony aunt to the group of guys, while the male support cast are either interesting stereotypical blokes or just simply annoying (eg; 'Rash'). In patches this flick may feel cringingly stilted (a bit like 'Home And Away' on drugs and booze), but a lot of the time it feels true-to-life and even disarmingly honest, pulling no punches in its unabashed portrayal of the egotistical male world of Bondi surfers (eg; the drunk idiots in the pub playing 'cardies'). Sad to say, it's just all too real.