EDtv

Logic would suggest that "EDtv" is mainly about someone named Ed. And something called TV.

Indeed, both have major roles in this bracing new comedy from director Ron Howard that probes the nature of fame. Ed, lovably played by Matthew McConaughey, is a 30-ish video-store clerk who consents to let a cable channel televise him live, around the clock.

"All Ed, all the time" is the slogan for ratings-starved True TV, whose three-person video crew shadows Ed, broadcasting his life to an insatiable nation.

On paper, "EDtv" appears quite similar to "The Truman Show," which starred Jim Carrey as the hero of his own ongoing telecast. But the differences are legion: Truman lived in a studio mocked up as his hometown. Everyone around him was employed as his supporting players. And he knew none of this.

"The Truman Show" was a chillingly observed allegory, while "EDtv" is a lighthearted fable. And it's something else: an unapologetic romance.

Which brings us to the film's most delightful ingredient: Ed's girlfriend, Shari (Jenna Elfman), a UPS driver who just wants a relationship and privacy. In this world of would-be stars, Shari is the lodestar, the modest but resolute conscience.

Shari neither wants to be on TV nor belongs there. After all, Ed's audience clamors for him to ditch her in favor of Jill (Elizabeth Hurley), a sexy actress angling to share Ed's prominence. (According to a newspaper poll, 71 percent of "EDtv" viewers feel Shari isn't good enough for Ed.)

Like her or hate her on the ABC sitcom "Dharma & Greg," here you're in for a surprise. As Shari, a woman unsure of herself and even less sure of men, Elfman is fresh, natural, comic yet winsome. In "EDtv," Elfman proves herself to be an actress and a true original.

The rest of the cast is strong, too, especially Woody Harrelson as Ed's loutish, loopy brother, Ray.

At their best (as in "A League of Their Own"), screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel share a deft, human touch for comedy. Thanks to them, "EDtv" is not only nourished by an affectionately humorous tale, but also armed with laugh-out-loud dialogue.

When program executive Cynthia (Ellen DeGeneres) is asked if research supports her choice of Ed as the network's new star, she shrugs, "Research? We don't even have enough money in our budget for coffee filters. We're using a yarmulke."

And ponder this observation: "You put anybody on television 16 hours a day, at some point they're going to wind up rolling off the table and squashing a cat."

The truth of that is demonstrated in "EDtv" — a tender, witty look at what it's like to go public.