TThe post-Get Out influx of “highbrow” horror films, more focused on smug trope-building than coherence or cohesion, is a blight on an already blighted genre. It's an incredibly difficult web to weave, and Jordan Peele himself has faced the odd stumbling block since his breakthrough break, but many have continued to try nonetheless, clumsily masquerading as films. I am writing a doctoral thesis.
But in I Saw the TV Glow, a much-talked-about new film premiering at Sundance, writer-director Jane Schoenbrunn makes it all look so easy, packed with meaning yet light on its feet. , and aroused discussion among us. The discussion never feels like an academic exercise. It's a movie that never forgets that it's a movie.
What makes their film doubly remarkable is that it's also about relatively recent nostalgia. This is another frustrating pitfall for many people. Because screens large and small are consumed by pop culture references tossed around without thought, offering recognition for recognition's sake. But I Saw the TV Glow, set primarily in his '90s and early '00s, is much more vivid than that. While Schoenbrunn recognizes that nostalgia can be a corrosive force, he creates a unique and completely believable media environment (the original songs by Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline Polachek feel thoroughly period rather than pastiche). By being bold and creative, he avoids the mistakes made by others. Their film is not a simple indictment of fandom. Schoenbrunn knows how overwhelming and positive it can feel to truly love a culture, but also the problems that such an attachment can cause when it becomes one's own. I'm also aware of it. Be everything you are.
Our first glimpse of what this something is is on the television set of 12-year-old Owen (played brilliantly by Ian Foreman of Let the Right One In). He saw a commercial for a teen fantasy show called “The Pink Opaque,” and was transfixed by the Buffy-esque monster-of-the-week horror that was just beyond his reach (on a Saturday night, well past his bedtime). will be broadcast). Owen runs into 9th grader Maddy (Atypical's Bridget Lundy-Paine) reading the show's episode guide, and the two begin a tentative and awkward friendship, but Owen doesn't get to watch the episodes with her. I lied and said I had a slumber party with another friend to see him. As the years pass, the slightly older Owen (played by Justice Smith since he was 14 years old, and a big ask paid off) and Maddie speak very little, their conversations limited to recorded episodes left on videotape. They both feel uncomfortable living outdoors. The world of the small screen that they are obsessed with. Things begin to unravel when the show is cancelled, and years later, both in their 20s, the two begin to question the nature of their reality.
Schoenbrunn's acclaimed debut, the lo-fi Internet body horror We're All Going to the World's Fair, is an interesting, if imperfect, mood piece that, although I wasn't always convinced, deeply touched the soul. I was convinced by their ability to evoke a moment in time. The creepiness in your stomach is the kind that is subtle yet often overwhelming and stays with you longer than you would like. I Saw the TV Glow marks a remarkable step forward for Schoenbrunn as both writer and director, and while still challenging, it fully immerses us in the more substantive story and visuals they've created. It is fused with incredibly expanded abilities. It's made with such precision that you can feel it even as you write. The atmosphere is so captivating that it feels more like an entire world than a cinematic creation, a scary and sad place that is vaguely more familiar to some of us than others.
Our ability to escape into imaginary structures becomes more difficult with age. This is not only because of how we are changing and closing in as humans, but also because of changes in the way we consume entertainment. Schoenbrunn explores the thrills and rewards we once traveled through physical media, the hurdles we have had to face, how much we have invested in what we can accumulate, the love sought and the I understand the intensity caused by. As an adult, Owen is suddenly perplexed to discover that the shows he once cherished can now be easily streamed with a click, and they look and feel different. Was this a dream? Were any of them real?
What this movie is ultimately about, and the uncomfortable place this movie ultimately takes us to, is probably the same kind of vehemence the characters have toward their favorite shows. It will be looked at carefully and with great attachment. It's about loneliness and fandom, and what it's like to deal with mental illness or to be there for someone who is going through that struggle, to see someone lose control and the pain it causes. It is also talked about. But it's also a story about what it's like to be queer and trans, and Schoenbrunn is a director of director Andrew Haig's more disturbing drama All of Us Strangers. It uses both characters to show the devastation of a life not lived in a way that brings to mind elements of the film. Schoenbrunn, a non-binary and transgender artist, has deftly and subtly found ways to involve us in experiences that are often flattened or made incomprehensible for the masses. The final act is an incomplete folly, pushing us a little too far in places, but when it pulls us back, it's an almighty gut-punch, a cry of sadness that still rings in our ears. “I Saw the TV Glow” is a puzzle with missing pieces, and like many who experience it right away, I'll be hooked on finding the pieces.
