I Saw The TV Glow (2024)
a review by Evan Landon
It is always an interesting way to slip in metaphorical references into a television show inside of a movie. It's a tricky tight rope to walk and it takes a lot of discipline to lasso concepts such as this and nail it to ground so the creativity maelstrom does not lift the entire idea into the atmosphere or another dimension of some kind. The paradoxical inference of self-reflection is also an extremely difficult story to tell. If that sounds convoluted, that's because it is on purpose. I'm not really here to discuss “modern art” with anyone, so let's move on.
A lot of the movies we have been forced to digest these days are so devoid of substance that you begin to wonder if your mind has been conditioned to habitually accept them. True artistry is a gift that should always be admired and very few major studios are able to capitalize on. Avant-Garde directors such as Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, The Holy Mountain), David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet), and John Waters (Pink Flamigos, Seed Of Chucky) truly designed the genre decades ago and to compare I Saw The TV Glow to any of their cinematic art pieces may seem like a stretch (except for Seed Of Chucky, of course), but it is obvious that writer/director Jane Schoenbrun was definitely inspired by such films. Such aspirations should always be commended.
I Saw The TV Glow is about two isolated teenagers who find each, bonding other over a television show called “The Pink Opaque” which honestly would have been a better name for this movie. They find each other ten years later with one claiming that they had been inside the tv show that entire time. Through monologues and flashbacks, it is up to the viewer to decide if they had been or not. The dialogue somes out like Mumblecore and the less you know about that inexplicable phenomenon, the better. It's like an ASMR of someone holding their hand over the receiver when they are on the phone.
Since the film is of the strange and eclectic variety, it is difficult to pin down a lot of the artistic representations of its premise. I mean that in the nicest way possible. That is, by far, my favorite part of this movie. The term “egg-crack” has been used by Schoenbrun which is “a term for the moment in a trans person's life when they realize their identity does not correspond to their assigned gender”, so this is definitely an allegory for that. I am what you call a “cis male” and I had to look up what that meant for whatevs reason. I don't care. I know it's a touchy subject for some peeps, but I don't think you have to think about that when watching this movie because it is all over the fucking place.
What is strange about this movie is that it is an hour and a half long, but it flies by like it is nothing. At times, it comes off “preachy”, but I honestly could not tell you what all the preaching is about. Again, it is a very abstract movie. There are some strange cameos too. Fred Durst plays the kid's dad who pulls him from being sucked into the tv and the two leads from The Adventures of Pete & Pete play his neighbors. Justice Smith is just fine as a protagonist and he has some serviceable range as an actor. Brigette Lundy-Paine recites her monologues concisely, but there is no real feeling behind any of it. That has to be on purpose though, so whatevs.
Produced by Emma Stone and her husband, Dave McCary, I Saw The TV Glow has been very well received by the shoegazers, but not so much the box office as it only pulled in $5.3 million against a $10 million budget. Art haus projects like this rarely become an unanticipated hit and this one is no exception. I am admittedly a huge fan of A24 Studios, but this one was a miss for me.
My only advice when watching this movie is not to rewind it because you think you missed something. It will not help you.
2.5 Out Of 5