User Reviews

Rating: 5.1 Overall, a fever dream that is a profound allegory for transgender identity, but its poor plot construction, bland dialogue, and monotonous performances do a poor job at being a vehicle for this message.

Direction: Pretty Bad The direction on a macroscale is pretty good because they do a pretty good job setting the aesthetic for the movie and building the world; the direction on a microscale is pretty bad because most of the interpersonal scenes feel very boring; the direction of actors is pretty bad because the performances feel bland and monotonous (with no chemistry between the two leads); the storytelling is not that good, but this is mainly because the story is poorly constructed; they build tension decently well

Story: Pretty Bad The concept is interesting and is built decently well; the plot structure is a mess because it feels like the exposition is too long and the conflict is introduced too late and the movie just ends very abruptly (it could have really benefited from 20 minutes of extra time); the character writing is not the best, but still prevalent as you see how the television show is an extension of their identity

Screenplay: Pretty Bad The dialogue is incredibly bland and monotonous (except for in the climax); the humor is pretty dry; the symbolism is incredibly profound as the movie is an allegory for transgender identity, and they do a good job finding the right balance of being overt/subtle about it; the movie does not really build towards anything, even though there is some foreshadowing

Acting: Bad to Pretty Bad Justice Smith: Pretty Bad (Very monotonous performance and his levels just don't match where they should be, but his performance gets better towards the end) Brigette Lundy-Paine: Bad to Pretty Bad (An incredibly monotonous performance that does not develop chemistry with their lead, but their monologue towards the end is pretty powerful because you can feel how personal it is) Rest of the cast: Bad (The movie is really about the two leads, but the rest of the cast does not do a good job in supporting them or helping tell the story)

Soundtrack: Pretty Good Enjoyed the soundtrack because it helped set the aesthetic for the movie

Cinematography: Good Enjoyed the framing and the wide-angle shots because it helped set the aesthetic for the movie; enjoyed the 90s television shots because it helped emulate that era

Editing: Pretty Good Used well with the cinematography to help set the aesthetic

Sound: Pretty Good Used well to help show the cheap nature of 1990s television

Visual Effects: Pretty Good I enjoyed how tacky it was because it helped make this movie feel like a fever dream or surreal

Makeup: Pretty Good It helped make this movie feel surreal, like a fever dream

Pacing Pacing is incredibly slow because the movie is mostly exposition; the overarching conflict is presented too late

Climax Climax feels more like the inciting incident because it really introduces the conflict, but it is profound in its message

Tone The tone is surreal, mixed with 1990s television.

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.

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.

First this is not a horror movie, not remotely close to a horror movie. This is a teen drama, it's about misunderstood youth, the outcasts, the people that feel like they don't belong. The kids that don't have anyone to identify with so they turn to films, tv, games, books etc. It reminds me a bit of myself in the 90s, I was (and still am) obsessed with horror, with oddities, with the weird things in life and have never felt like I fit in anywhere, much like the characters of the film.

The problem with the film is we don't know enough of the characters to connect with them or even care about them. You can assume they are obsessed with a television show (The Pink Opaque), they watch as teens. I say assume because it really isn't expressed in the film, it's kind of implied with Maddy but Owen just seems so indifferent to absolutely everything, he shows interest in the show but I'm not sure obsessed is the right word for him, he just doesn't show much emotion. I really wish the characters and their friendship had been more fleshed out and their relationship shown more. We see them watch the show together twice over the span of 2 years and they don't appear to be all that close. Maddy goes missing and the movie jumps 8 years and we see them reunite. There are flashbacks of their friendship showing Owen in a dress implying he may be trans or at least experimenting, this seems like such an important moment as you can interpret the film to being about someone struggling with their identity but being too scared to express it but it's just shown as a blip, it's never even talked about. I found this so incredibly frustrating and annoying that it was skimmed over so quickly.

The film it self is so fractured, the scenes feel choppy and not finished, many don't seem to have a point and the scenes that feel like they are FINALLY going somewhere they don't, they end too soon or offer no conclusion or explanation. At no point does it feel like the creator has actually provided a coherent story. It feels lazy and like the director/writer got lost in their own work. It feels like a short story idea that they weren't able to resolve or flesh out enough to fill the entire film so instead we end up with this mess that doesn't make any sense at all. The only positive thing I have to say about this movie is the cast, they were absolutely fantastic with the material they were given, I just wish we had seen more of their characters and more range as they are both fairly flat and emotionless the entire span of the movie.

I can appreciate a film that is open to interpretation, or is meant to be more symbolic than literal, however at some point the creator needs to stand their ground on SOMETHING and have some sort of solid concept, something tangible, the entire movie shouldn't be up for debate. That is just lazy story telling. Are Owen and Maddy really Isabelle and Tara and The Pink Opaque is real? Or are they just your normal teens struggling with their sexuality and identity in a world that makes them feel unaccepted? Saying it can be interpreted as either isn't true and again is lazy. You can't interpret it as both when both ideas aren't fully explored and certainly not when the story only feels half told.

I love A24 typically, I've rarely been let down by their releases but this one really is just such a huge disappointment. I do not understand how anyone can say this is some brilliant film when frankly it's just mediocre and feels like a student art project that never got it's point across and is trying way too hard to be seen as "art". At the end of the day I took it as the kids weren't experiencing anything paranormal, Maddy struggled with her sexuality and ran away from home never to be seen again. Owen struggled with his gender identity, he hallucinates Maddy coming back as an adult. Own then spends his life pretending to be whatever he thinks people deem to be "normal" (have a family) only to realize who he actually is when he is middle aged. There is no conclusion to the film, we don't know if Owen accepts himself, if Owen even knows who is is, if he finds happiness, absolutely NOTHING....it just ends.

If u ain't never stared into an open grave & had to decide between facin either a terrifyin unknown or the horror of what is, this movie is gonna miss u by a mile. This story is not abt ditchin a small town & how beautiful life can be thereafter. This story is abt what happens when u refuse to acknowledge the truth within yrself- when u know somethin is desperately wrong & yr miserable but fear keeps u frozen where u are. What happens when u miss yr chances to break free & have to live with the consequences? Can u finally tear yrself open & see what's been within u all along? Or will u slowly suffocate in a prison yr too scared to escape?

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.