Much like how his character, Ed Pekurny, finds fame as the subject of a 24-hour "reality" cable network, Matthew McConaughey should find his falling star back on the rise as the lead in _EDtv_, Ron Howard's amiable goof of a comedy. McConaughey is a charismatic charmer as Ed, a Texas-to-San Francisco transplant whose life becomes fodder for the TV-viewing masses, but unlike Truman Burbank in Peter Weir's similarly-themed (and far superior) _The_Truman_Show_, Ed is fully aware of the cameras. But as with Truman, Ed, while initially intrigued with the notion of having all eyes on him, comes to yearn for freedom, especially after it creates strain between and his girlfriend Shari (Jenna Elfman)--who, as it happens, is the ex of Ed's wilder older brother Ray (Woody Harrelson).

Howard and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel don't have the high satirical aims of _Truman's_ Weir and writer Andrew Niccol; they simply aim to entertain. And after a tentative start, _EDtv_ picks up comedic steam and does just that, amusingly exploring the ramifications of Ed's sudden, if largely unmerited, celebrity, from opportunistic groupies (Elizabeth Hurley's sizzling model/aspiring actress) to the diminished privacy of his colorful family. Harrelson is predictably effective as a blowhard, and Elfman (Golden Globe winner for TV's _Dharma_and_Greg_) shows major promise as a screen star, but the McConaughey magnetism is so overwheming that the film could easily have been called _MATTtv_.