Retrospective Film Review

Quiz Show (1994) • 30 Years Later — the falsehoods of America and death of morality in a poignant drama

A young lawyer investigates a potentially fixed game show…

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” If the Buddha had been on an American quiz show in the 1950s, he’d have realised this was far from the case. In a closed-off set, neither the sun nor the moon would be in sight… and the idea of truth being anywhere nearby was utterly laughable.

It’s 1958 and Herb Stempel (John Turturro) is dominating on Twenty-One, a television quiz show where contestants must answer trivia for obscene amounts of money. Herb has been unbeatable for weeks, the savant from a poor neighbourhood in the Bronx being gifted with a retentive memory. But then his ratings start to drop. It doesn’t matter how smart you are in the television industry — if you draw poor numbers, you’re no good for business.

Dan Enright (David Paymer) begins looking for his replacement. He discovers that Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a Columbia University…