I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, 2024)

[therewillbeblus]

I Saw the TV Glow: As I left my screening last night, I vowed not to write about this film yet - a hesitation born partially from its elliptical and vast scope exhausting my brain trying to outpace the bodily sensations and emotional impact I was feeling but could not annotate. However, while I'll leave the allegorical speculation on sexuality and gender identity and how we're shaped by (and unlock parts of our 'self' through) media - surrogate characters in particular - and many, many other self-reflexive aspects for others to dissect, I did find Jane Schoenbrun's follow-up to We're All Going to the World's Fair in step with that film's bitter, fearless sincerity and surging empathy for the human experience. For example, even though the film is not above using its beloved show as parodic for laughs, Schoenbrun plays the seriousness the characters approach the show.. seriously. Brigette Lundy-Paine has a monologue in the last act that's so absurd, but played straight and nails the intended tone. It's one of those challenges I haven't seen pulled off as well since Pig sold its similarly-ridiculous conceit in the end based on a combination of Cage and Arkin's performances' genuineness - I can't believe I didn't hear a snicker in either theatre, but I could hear a pin drop.

Otherwise, It's an aesthetic dreamscape, has an OST immediately earned as a cultural touchstone before release, and a profound meditation on that feeling of being out of place, afraid, and alone. I found myself thinking a lot about how the two friends represent the polarizations of a socially-bruised personality (ever more appropriate as we get further into internet culture) - Brigette Lundy-Paine playing the person, like her show-equivalent, who feels like she 'knows her self' and wants to participate and create experience and yet she'll keep moving and running because nothing is good enough; while for Ian Foreman's Owen, only "nothing" is good enough, perpetually afraid of participation, finding out who he 'is' inside, or deviating from the path assigned to him. Plus, the way culture can feel like the safest, even-necessary way to form human connections, but it too is fleeting as nostalgia carries its own form of loss - though the passing of cultural objects as inherently meaningful, expressed with a sublime tracking shot over Caroline Polachek's song, gently challenges this assertion as mutually exclusive from other value, and also makes it an art product for Gen X in many ways.

The two have as many similarities as differences - in their home lives, how they connect deeply to media, the drive to avoid or run from dysphoria as well as to run to whatever marker of safety is there (solitude, a TV show), and ultimately a differentiation of outcomes based on their journeys and personalities: Is it a question of leaning into faith as profitable, or derealization as problematic? Possibly both and their opposites. This film has one of the most optimistic endings to a movie I've ever seen, before Schoenbrun refuses to end their film on a cathartic, unambiguous Win and arguably gives us one of the most depressing. Like their last film, I choose to look at it as both, and everything in between -

Spoiler

though the implication that Owen doesn't change as time slips by, despite all the 'things' he accumulates (including, apparently, a family?), says a lot I don't want to hear, but maybe I need to.

Addendum: Schoenbrun dishes out a layered Twin Peaks reference at one point, which includes The Return - and now that I've reflecting a bit more on the film, I realize that the closest cousin to this film is Twin Peaks: The Return. It's a very reflexive gesture, but the entire vibe of this movie and its thematic interests are close to Lynch's with that follow-up project, and I look forward to someone other than me writing up a long thinkpiece on their connection.

The movie is also - and this isn't really a spoiler, but.. - an anti-horror movie, in that

Spoiler

Owen bolts and hides from any opportunity to engage in the extroverted activity that may lead to 'horror'. Its anti-climax is its climax, as Owen has his own compromised experience of self-discovery that's fleeting, but we don't get in on the fun because it's his story more than Maddy's. And yet it's (or, at least I find it) so cathartic to stew with Owen, and share in that challenging experience. Schoenbrun doesn't cop out, and that might mean that a lot of people walk away unhappy, but it's true to the themes and the character.

This one's for those of us who identify with Barry Egan

[therewillbeblus]

I saw TV Glow again and found myself oscillating between more literal and elliptical readings

Spoiler

There's something nefarious yet ambiguous about whether media has the power to set parts of us free and trap us alike, depending how we use it or how its relationship with our personal traits develops. And yet, there's something far less ambiguous about the tragedy of Owen's inability to realise his identity as either queer in some form or a different gender entirely. There's nothing subtle about the opening scenes where a young Owen gets up and explores the place he's both mesmerized and trapped in, inspired by the soundtrack of a self-actualized non-binary talent covering a song sung speaking to self-conscious young women finding themselves.

[The Narrator Returns]

Brigette Lundy-Paine has a monologue in the last act that's so absurd, but played straight and nails the intended tone. It's one of those challenges I haven't seen pulled off as well since Pig sold its similarly-ridiculous conceit in the end based on a combination of Cage and Arkin's performances' genuineness - I can't believe I didn't hear a snicker in either theatre, but I could hear a pin drop.

I had a very different experience with this scene, my sub-ten-person audience was quiet except for one person who was sobbing through it, to the point they had to leave the theater to recompose themselves. I can't know for sure the reason it affected them that deeply but I still understand it perfectly, it's a metaphor that's maybe 10% of a metaphor. Which brings me to your most recent spoilered section.

Spoiler

The whole movie and its take on transness is in the juxtaposition of the Maddy and Owen sides of the narrative, the painful ambiguity of whether one's new identity is yourself or just a compendium of the media that you've projected onto versus the absolute certainty that you're destroying yourself if you choose to stay in your old shell. Your separation of "literal and elliptical" I think will reflect how audiences (at least the ones willing to give themselves over to it) will divide over it, those who are fascinated and disturbed by it from an understanding but still "safe" distance (like how I watched We're All Going to the World's Fair) versus those who'll react to it like a piercing shriek directly in their ear, no room for misinterpretation of what they're seeing and hearing. I'm in the latter camp all the way, to the point I can't really bring myself to understand those who merely thought it was "cryptic". It's not a message movie but the message is literally written out in children's sidewalk chalk.

[therewillbeblus]

Well said, and agreed on many levels. It's difficult for me to parse out my thoughts on this film because it's more... 'poetic'(?) than any film I've seen in some time, and deliberately undefined in a way I've never seen before quite like this. I have lots more thoughts related to your spoilerbox that I wanted to post, but I don't think they'd make much sense and are probably better kept within (not to the extent of Owen, but to process alone!)

[therewillbeblus]

Another TV Glow Easter Egg:

Spoiler

In addition to Durst and Pete & Pete showing up in nefarious-feeling roles, the credits reveal that the movie Owen's theatre plays early on is actually real footage from Transmorphers, which I believe was a DTV knock off of Transformers that was released at the same time the real version was in theaters. Those production houses made money by tricking people at video stores into getting it when they thought they were renting the real thing, but it was certainly never in theatres. Just more evidence that Owen is in the wrong place, or body allegorically.

Also, can't stop listening to NIN's "Right Where It Belongs," which feels like an eerie inspiration for the film's conceit

[swo17]

A24 Shop-exclusive Blu-ray

[brundlefly]

They are leaving money on the table not offering a superdeluxe VHS edition with personalized hand-written labels by Schoenbrun and built-in tracking issues.

[swo17]

Funnily enough, World's Fair--which is about the internet--did get a gimmicky VHS release

[brundlefly]

In four different colors, no less! I admire the counterintuitive marketing, but I was picturing something more handmade. Perhaps I'm thinking too small. Maybe craft some sort of fan experience package so I can later watch Jenny Nicholson review what it's like to guest star in episodes of The Pink Opaque. Or be buried alive and have someone read the script at you through the dirt.

[The Narrator Returns]

There's already a fan experience package, it can be yours for the price of an estrogen prescription.

[TechnicolorAcid]

There's already a fan experience package, it can be yours for the price of an estrogen prescription.

Instructions unclear: I am now no longer balding

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

There's already a fan experience package, it can be yours for the price of an estrogen prescription.

For real The People's Joker in 4dx was such a huge missed opportunity. I'm really hoping that A24 are considering a UHD edition too.

[therewillbeblus]

Snail Mail’s cover of “Tonight, Tonight” from the OST - previously an A24 site vinyl-exclusive track - is now available to stream on YT (and probably other platforms)

[mfunk9786]

A24 Shop-exclusive Blu-ray

Really a slam dunk movie for HDR, but had to own this regardless of whether it's exactly what I wanted or not.

[domino harvey]

Discussion of, well, you can probably guess, moved here - please do not re-engage with that topic in this thread

[TechnicolorAcid]

Part of me has strived to write anything that encompasses my feelings on this film because for a large part it left me empty and almost depressed particularly because a large part of this film connected with a very devastating part of my past involving a old friend who helped me accept myself and offered genuine connection only to vanish from my life suddenly and while I doubt they're in a TV horror land, it still felt almost taken from my experiences and perhaps I'm putting myself into this but a large part of my appreciation of this film is that it deals with loneliness in such a upfront manner, the isolation, striving for any true connection, lost friends (the Mother's remarks about Owen's friend when he asks to go to a sleepover particularly), and the attempt to fill that void through the escapism provided in a TV show that can ultimately go too far. The locations especially give this sense of emptiness even in the high schools or at the arcade style location near the end that should be crammed with people but instead have a couple wandering souls populating it. And the idea that all of this is in flashback really cements this feeling of regret and yearning in that perhaps Owen wished he could've stayed with Maddie instead of wimping out and the idea of memory is a consistent theme of the film and how nostalgia can change our perspectives of how things were (part of me thinks that's how Fred Durst was cast as the Dad). Slightly lackluster review I know but this is really one of those movies where my heart speaks on it more than my mind and what does it say that I'm still heavily thinking about the movie days after I watched and comparing it to everything from Are You Afraid of the Dark to Talking Heads' 'Once in a Lifetime'.
4.22 out of 4.24

[Mr Sausage]

Not a lackluster review at all. I appreciate you saying these things. One of the reasons I never posted about the movie was my own difficulty disentangling my emotions from the experience enough to say something organized or coherent. I hit me hard, and made me, too, think of troubled friends who dropped out of my life. Oh, and I feel you on Are You Afraid of the Dark. First place my mind went to when I saw The Pink Opaque.

[JamesF]

The Pink Opaque combines a bunch of 1990s horror-adjacent kids/teen TV all at once, and Schoenbrun is clearly having a ball making something in the vein of what were almost certainly formative influences for them. Are You Afraid of the Dark of course, similar contemporaries like Eerie Indiana and Goosebumps, lo-fi educational shows like Ghostwriter, and of course Buffy, which along with the credits font is also clearly (via “The Bronze”) the inspiration for the nightclub where a different band plays every episode. (Yes, this could also be attributed to the roadhouse in The Return, though it’s more likely to have been both rather than one or the other.) After the brief snippet of the creepypasta dramatisation in World’s Fair, hopefully this will be a motif in their work going forward!

Having spent half my adolescence with my nose stuck in “(un)official companion” episode guide tie-in books for X-Files et al, a lot of this hit home. Maybe it’s just me watching as a cis viewer but, contrary to some responses to the film I read ahead of time (like the one we’ve been asked not to talk about), I found any queer themes to be so subtextual they could practically be ignored altogether, as opposed to its discussion of fandom and nostalgia and the corrosive dangers thereof. World’s Fair didn’t quite work for me but I still really admired how it channelled the feeling of having an online life totally separate from the “real” world more than anything else I’ve seen in cinema, and based on TV Glow, I’m excited to see what incredibly specific part of the Gen Y experience Schoenbrun tackles next!

[Murdoch]

I don't have much to add to the above because my thoughts are more emotional than anything that would be some insight into the movie. I haven't seen much this year that left any impression on me, but this was great and really captures that existential confusion that comes along with late adolescence and how strong a bond you can have with the media you consume while crossing the threshold into adulthood. Justice Smith's monotone but vulnerable performance feels like I was watching a variation of myself at that age, especially given the similarities in teenage supernatural monster of the week dramas between Owen's fascinatiion with the Pink Opaque and mine with Buffy (a show I really dived into in late high school, although nowhere near Owen's levels of obsession). An absolutely affecting tragedy with a visual design that perfectly captures those strange, distorted memories of the past. It reminded of Skinamirink, which is a very different yet somehow similarly affecting movie, in how it captures the painful isolation of youth and how, when a child is abandoned or without support, they are lost without an anchor and looking for someone to save them (not sure what I mean by that last part but I'm just kind of writing stream of consciousness right now).

[TechnicolorAcid]

Very good review Murdoch but if I may I want to point out one thing I did realize that I don’t think I’ve heard anywhere else. I mentioned in my review I wondered why Fred Durst was even in this but part of me wonders since the movie is so focused on regret of your past if perhaps Durst was cast because he himself was infamous in carrying the blame for the disaster of Woodstock 99 during his performance of Break Stuff which large amounts of people claimed to be the moment Woodstock 99 turned (which it wasn’t let’s be very clear) so maybe this movie struck some cord with him.

[Mr Sausage]

I agree with the people who pointed out that the one male figure in early-to-mid 2000s sections of the movie who's always reinforcing traditional masculine norms and keeping Owen from self-discovery, sometimes physically, is played by that era's biggest embodiment of toxic masculinity.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Well there’s that too and indeed I thought of that but I also figured it would be too much of a coincidence to hire a man filled with potential regrets from one of the worst concert disasters in history in a film centered around regret not to mention the reputation he has in music history as this whiny little frontman during his prime (possibly why he covered Behind Blue Eyes to try and prove he was more than what the critics said).

[The Narrator Returns]

I don't know about that, I have no insight into Fred Durst's remorse or lack thereof about that and also "regret" would probably not make the top ten of things I think TV Glow is about (but that list would be very different from the lists of many commenting here). But I get it because I wholeheartedly believe that Schoenbrun cast both Lindsey "Snail Mail" Jordan and Phoebe Bridgers as a conscious nod to Jordan accusing Bridgers of being a fake bisexual.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I don't know about that, I have no insight into Fred Durst's remorse or lack thereof about that and also "regret" would probably not make the top ten of things I think TV Glow is about (but that list would be very different from the lists of many commenting here). But I get it because I wholeheartedly believe that Schoenbrun cast both Lindsey "Snail Mail" Jordan and Phoebe Bridgers as a conscious nod to Jordan accusing Bridgers of being a fake bisexual.

May Contain Small Spoilers

I'd actually argue that regret might one of the centermost themes in TV Glow especially if you view it as a trans allegory by creating this atmosphere of regretting how one has lived their life, bottling up their inner feelings until it's too late to turn back towards the path they wanted to take. And also there's a general feeling of regret in the third act which culminates in that last scene of utter emotional pain of Owen's grief of losing his connection (especially with his mother) and regretting not getting a resolution or moment of final catharsis (indeed those moments are so underplayed to the point some people might not even really register what really happened) which of course also fits in with the film's emptiness.

[The Narrator Returns]

Spoiler

Certainly I'm not arguing that regret isn't a big crux of the epilogue, the caving in of everything that Owen hasn't done for himself over three decades. To me, "regret" signals something more past-tense than how I read the movie, which is as a hellish perpetual present despite the obvious nostalgia hanging over much of it. I don't necessarily think of Owen regretting his decision because he makes that decision all over again every day, until maybe a point after the ending of this when he doesn't.