Say what you will about Howard's abilities, he is pretty indisputably an auteur -- that is, he's a film director whose personal sensibility is inextricably a part of each of his film projects. His generous conception of Americana is broad-ranging enough to include firefighters, astronauts, the feisty AARP rank and file, and even a mermaid. While I never expected Howard's sweetness and generosity to fuel a truly great movie, I do look to him for some pretty good ones.

Some reviewers will likely tell you that his newest effort, EDtv, was fated to be The Truman Show redux, but that's not necessarily true. Truman was a fable about a man who realized that his only known reality was a sham -- that what he thought of as love and happiness were artificial constructs imposed on him by an unseeable puppetmaster, and his free will actually nothing more than a wildly popular performance piece. EDtv, by contrast, revolves around a less tragic lead character -- one who actually chooses to live his life in the glare of the mass media, and then must deal with the spirit-crushing consequences of that decision.

Because Howard is an auteur, we can pretty much guess what form this particular story will take from the get-go. It will celebrate Ed as an everyman hero, a likable schlemiel with smarts and sincerity that belie his goofy appearance. It will celebrate the importance of romantic love, and may suggest that the scrutiny of the media has a deadening effect on romance and affection. It will probably be funny, often broadly so, and in its eagerness to please everyone, it will dance around the real issues of culpability in favor of a light satire that indicts nobody.

So Matthew McConaughey is Ed, an unassuming video store clerk whose natural charisma catches the eye of an ambitious video producer (Ellen DeGeneres) hoping to mold a "reality TV" program into a ratings success by putting one ordinary Joe on the tube all day and all night. Ed, whose brother Ray (Woody Harrelson) is deep in debt, selflessly agrees to the scheme, planning on handing his salary over to Ray at the end of his three-month tenure on the air. Complications ensue when Ed, making a nocturnal visit to brother Ray, catches him "entertaining" a "guest" after hours -- and calls him on it on camera. Trouble is, Ray's devoted girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman) is watching EDtv at the time, and everyone's world gets turned upside down.

You guessed it -- trying to comfort a distraught Shari, Ray winds up falling in love with the girl. Also on camera, natch. The on-screen development and dissolution of their relationship accounts for the bulk of EDtv's storyline, as Ray tries to woo Shari on national TV.

In places, Howard's taste for pop cultural theatrics suits this story extremely well, as when a throng of cheering onlookers greets Ed (estranged from Shari) as he makes his way to a well-publicized evening rendezvous with Elizabeth Hurley (once again typecast as the Sexiest Woman On Earth), or when Howard himself shows up in an extended cameo (with comically bad hair plugs) as the show's field producer.

Howard also has a way with actors. (He launched Tom Hanks's career, after all.) So help me, this is the first time that I've found McConaughey to be near as charming as his star billing suggests, and TV star Jenna Elfman makes a credible big-screen impression as the leading woman. Maybe she just went to the Renee Zellwegger Charm School, but I'll still look forward to seeing her show up in more substantial roles.

Those roles would be, presumably, in more substantial movies. The concept of exhibitionism in the mass media age is, I think, a suitably fascinating one. (For instance, it still amazes me to see how many people willingly point cameras at themselves and broadcast their own versions of EDtv over the Web, often with no promise of financial gain.) Equally worthy of consideration is the question of how the fin de siecle media spotlight destroys privacy and dignity. Certainly it's deserving of a more nuanced interpretation than the very cautious one offered here by Howard's longtime collaborators, screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Splash, Parenthood). Basically, EDtv is The Truman Show without teeth, and it could have been quite a bit more.