User Reviews

I thought about half of this movie was very bland. Technically well shot scenes, good music, but the characters were very closed off and emotionally disconnected from each other and the viewer. Casting was a bit odd for the characters' ages. Functionally the first half felt like 45 minutes of 2 autistic friends bonding over The Pink Opaque (aka a show like H20, Goosebumps, Buffy etc) and then it takes a dark turn. The last third of the movie is awkwardness turned creepy. Almost schizophrenic dissociation mixed with gender dysphoria. Plus Connor O'Malley as a movie theater employee? But still only barely horror, like the analog/youtube horror genre where creepiness = vhs effects and a gross face. It feels like the movie saying "this is scary!" and me thinking "Wow this is just really awkward!"

I felt that the first half could have done better at establishing the characters. The only thing I understand about Owen and Maddy is that they each have an abusive parent and they like The Pink Opaque. I also think that Maddy would make the more interesting lead character, rather than Owen. Simply because Maddy experiences a journey of change and absurdity. Owen's character doesn't change on the surface, only internally, and that's hard to keep track of through the movie as it is. It was also hard to care about Owen's mom, with how little he seemed to care about her.

Stylistically its very fun. 4th wall breaking and cool framing. Way too much neon lighting though, and the 4th wall breaking never amounted to much that was interesting, because it happened during flat, monotone monologues, where the characters dryly summarize changes in the plot and look directly imto the camera. This is practically the main method of delivering plot, and it kind of sucks. I found myself laughing hysterically in the theater, because the dry monologues are so awkward and dire. Some of the lines are absolutely insane and my only reaction was to just laugh.

"I was working at the ball pit.. restocking the balls." "Mr. Melancholy took me and fed me his luna juice. And I went back there and found both of our hearts, still beating." "I paid a boy $50 to bury me alive. I got a casket, in a grave, and got in."

I'm misquoting it surely, because I just saw the movie. But this kind of dire, awkward surreal stuff would have been so nice to have at the start of the movie. It's just so plain until the trippy stuff starts, and fills a very basic teen movie drama for 2/3rds of its run-time.

7/10 for making me laugh maniacally in a quiet theater, your rating may vary wildly based on how patient you are with A24's trademark melancholy teen drama style.

"I Saw the TV Glow" isn't your typical popcorn flick. It's more like digging through a box of old VHS tapes in your attic.

The film is beautifully shot, even with that whole lo-fi aesthetic. There's a real sense of nostalgia for that pre-internet era, where your imagination had to fill in the blanks. The acting is strong too, especially from the two leads. They capture that awkwardness and confusion of being a teenager perfectly.

Now, here's the thing: "I Saw the TV Glow" isn't for everyone. It's slow-burning, and some folks might find it boring. It's also pretty ambiguous, so don't expect everything to be spelled out for you. But if you're looking for something different, something that will stay with you long after the credits roll, then give this a shot.

I definitely loved this movie I thought it was very good at what it was trying to do but I really disagreed with the way they portrayed transness & coming out as killing yourself. (before I continue I should say I am transfeminine and have been out for four years) I understand why people describe it that way-I mean my own father has told me "my son is dead" before but I feel like that narrative is really more the cisgender perspective of someone else coming out. I also was really frustrated with how they presented coming out as this binary choice between killing yourself in a horrific way & (maybe/potentially) becoming free or living a miserable existence suffocating for the rest of your life. I don't think it's such a simple one or the other existence for us and to be honest I think portraying it that way was reductive. It's definitely designed to prey on that fear of wasting away the years of your life.

I think its easier to make people fear that they've wasted their time than to make them feel like there's always ways to enjoy your life wherever they are (like everything everywhere all at once did). It felt like there was only one acceptable way for the main character to express their gender and explore their identity which was one they weren't comfortable with & subjecting them to this horrible existence because of that felt lame in my opinion. Overall I think it was great as a concept, great as a movie, but I really disliked it as a trans story.

When I watched it last night my friends and I just came out of it feeling this sense of dread and we ended up coincidentally being in the same theatre as two of my other friends who had the same experience and we had a little group cry. I feel like we already know it's horrifying to be trans & preying on that feeling with no depiction of any trans joy is kind of low hanging fruit & feeds into this narrative a lot of cisgender people have that's like "oh I feel bad for you it must be so horrible to be trans." but it's not! Sure it can be terrifying but it is also the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I hope whoever reads this far has a good day.

I really couldn't tell you the plot of this movie. I could tell you what happened, but I couldn't give you all of the reasons why any of it did. I honestly felt like I was watching an experimental project from a first year art school student who wouldn't even be able to explain the meaning of what we saw if asked.

Even if this movie was comprehensible, there so many odd things about it from a production standpoint. For example, the audio on the TV show the main characters watch is terrible, to the point of almost being inaudible. Old TV didn't sound THAT bad. The casting between young Owen and adult Owen (Justice Smith) is just jarring since they look nothing like each other, and they play each other only 2 years apart.

MINOR SPOILERS - I had to read an interview with the writer/director just to know that the movie is supposed to be an allegory for gender transitioning, and I never picked up on that, at all. One character was gay, and their struggles were portrayed, while the other came across as asexual, and very little of that was ever explored. Was their "sexuality" their love for this TV show? I couldn't tell you because the movie tells you nothing.

If one has only seen the trailer for this art house film then they would think it's a horror movie about memory and tv, and perception of reality and looks like it'll lead into the Lovecraftian horror, but alas it did not.

It's hard to say exactly what the film wants to be. I know the writer and director Jane Schoenbrun has stated that it's about transitioning from one gender to another and it sort of feels like that, but it also feels like parents and abuse, and about sexuality. My point is that the message is messy. The trailer does not help.

The trailer plays it out that it's gonna be this Kubrickesque horror film that is slow and scary. The film is slow but it is also frustrating because it takes each character so much dialogue to get to the point. Justice Smith did a great job with what he had and I can see he can lead a movie.

Would I recommend it? I don't know, probably not. It's neither scary or bizarre enough. Sure there are some weird moments but I've seen films that are far far weirder.

5/10.

Dysmorphia and Dissociation!

When I went to see Jane Schoenbrun's (2024) I Saw the TV Glow, I was reminded of other depictions of dissociation in films-Darren Aronofsky's (2010) Black Swan, Brad Anderson's (2004) The Machinist, James Mangold's (1999) Girl, Interrupted; but none of these depictions dive as deeply into body dysmorphia as Schoenbrun's colorful psychological nightmare. I'll admit while I was watching it, I was so enamored by the visuals-the color palettes, the composition-that I missed a lot of what the story was. I knew Schoenbrun was trans, but failed to make the connection during the film: a TV show character trapped in a "real life human body" is a metaphor for the body dysmorphia that trans people experience when they are unable to transition.

The protagonist, Owen, is a reclusive young man in an intimate relationship with television, specifically a supernatural horror show called The Pink Opaque. Maddy is two years older, a lesbian who introduces Owen to The Pink Opaque. Maddy makes her sexuality clear to him before they hang out, that she is not into guys. He assures her that he's not interested in her like that. Maddy asks him if he likes girls or boys to which he responds, "I don't know. I like TV shows." This scene hints at the character's break from gender and/or sexual normativity, hinting at asexuality or queerness.

Owen struggles with asthma throughout the film, becoming more wheezy and short of breath as we age with him from adolescence to middle age. Maddy goes missing for ten years and returns suddenly with an urgent message for Owen, that she is not really Maddy and he is not really Owen, the two of them have been brainwashed into thinking they've been watching the show when in reality they are the two main characters in the show, Isabel and Tara, and can only enter their true bodies/identities by burying themselves alive. Maddy is really Tara and Owen is really Isabel. Owen's real body (Isabel's body) has been poisoned with Luna Juice and buried alive, which speaks to why he has literally and figuratively been suffocating throughout the movie. When Tara/Maddy tells Isabel/Owen this, he thinks she's crazy and proceeds to live out the rest of his life as Owen.

By the end of the movie, Owen is in his fifties working at an arcade and is basically continuously hyperventilating. After an episode of screaming, he goes to the bathroom and cuts his stomach down the middle and rips it open revealing a glow of blinding light, an indication of his true essence being the TV show deep within him. Then he returns to the arcade and apologizes to everyone for his outburst, claiming it was because of a new medication.

All of these metaphors became clear to me when the movie ended abruptly after this scene. I noticed a lot of people crying and hugging each other when the credits started rolling, which puzzled me, since my experience of the film was more surreal and I wasn't grasping the underlying meaning. As we left the theater, a trans person said to people leaving the theater, "It's okay if you want to transition! I did it and it was the best decision of my life!" Only then did it click what this movie was really about. The film was categorized as drama/horror, which strongly influenced how I was watching it. If it were categorized as psychological drama, perhaps I would've been paying attention to more of the inner workings of the story and less anticipation of being scared by the more conventional elements of horror (i.e. Gore, suspense, thrill, etc.). Although it's not scary in these more conventional ways, the real horror of this film is its brutal message of reality for trans people then and now.

As cis male-bodied person, I don't think I can ever truly understand what this movie is really about. It causes me to wonder if this film is even supposed to be understood or even watched by cis people. Who is the intended audience of this film? Why is it marketed as drama/horror rather than LGBTQ+? I'm reminded of the character Thelonious "Monk" Edison in Cord Jefferson's (2023) American Fiction, a Black author who is fighting against the industry's standard to assume Black writers must always belong in the category Black literature. Perhaps Schoenbrun is making a similar statement in how the LGBTQ+ cinema is perceived and categorized, that a trans directer doesn't have to always fall within that category, even though the story is clearly about being trans.

The film speaks to the many lived experiences of trans people in the 1990s-the trauma, suppression, suicide and how these elements persist today. But I still was critical of the writing and performances which felt weak at times, especially Brigette Lundy-Paine's acting during the planetarium scene which felt incredibly forced and was painful to watch-not in a good way. The film's use of neon color and dreamlike sequences misguided me from the core of the story which is profoundly deep and specific; it is not a surrealist, absurdist, abstract piece, even though that's what I thought I was seeing while watching it.

People are going to love and hate this movie. It's going to be a cult classic of the 21st century regardless of how I or anyone feels about the writing, performances, cinematography, editing, etc. I believe it is cemented in film history as a milestone. I honestly have never seen anything like it, I just wish there was more of the dripping oozing ice cream man-but again, it's not a body horror piece, it's an ethnographic psychological drama that deconstructs life for trans people in a culture that refuses to see them as human.

Although I'm cis and do not experience body dysmorphia, I do experience dissociation frequently, particularly with the qualities of social media, film, and television and how it alters my perception of my reality, identity, and the human condition. As I left the theater and saw trash all over the streets, dozens of homeless people on every corner, I started to wonder if I was really there, the place I called home for my joyful and playful childhood. The dichotomy of the place I grew up in and the place I was in (Burlington, Vermont), I started to wonder if I was really someone else, somewhere else. But perhaps that's what growing up is about, where the ugliness that was always there starts to reveal itself to you.

I don't think dissociation needs to be confined into the category of a disorder or mental illness. The line between one's fantasy and dissociation is fine or even subjective. Let people dream and let them become their dreams. I personally like my fantasies as fantasies and let my dreams be dreams, but transformation is always inevitable. This film has the potential to start a critical and crucial dialogue around identity and how it's altered, suppressed, and/or discovered, cultivating the possibility for more trans acceptance.