B+Directed by Jane Schoenbrun Starring Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Let’s not pretend that there’s a vast wealth of movies about the trans experience, but for the viewer who stays plugged into the world of independent cinema and has access to the theaters that program them, there are more and more examples every year. In the first 9 months of 2024, there’s been Crossing, Monkey Man, National Anthem, and The People’s Joker, with Emilia Perez soon to come. These films have been some of the best of the year, and the hope is that there are more and more onscreen ways into trans lives that use the medium as more than just a visual memoir, which feels like the most boring outcome. Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow is one of the best possible outcomes, as it is plainly about the writer/director’s own feelings as a trans woman, but can also be read as an allegory for the kind of teenage alienation that fails to dissipate with age. Its personal specificity is so precise that it does the classic thing and taps into the universal.
Justice Smith stars as Owen, a shy, friendless teen in a bland suburban neighborhood, raised by a dying mother (Danielle Deadwyler) and a macho stepdad (Fred Durst). Seen briefly at a younger age, Owen (Ian Foreman) bonds with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over an obscure young-adult TV series called The Pink Opaque, rich with lore and teen horror pitched slightly over Owen’s head. He contrives ways to spend the night at Maddy’s house watching episodes, though as rapt as they both are, they don’t spend too much time discussing the finer details. An episode ends, and they go to sleep. As Owen stumbles through high school, Maddy disappears in conjunction with the series’ unplanned series finale, only to return several years later with dark fantastical yarn about living in the series and needing to be buried alive, so they both can become the two lead characters and continue their campaign against the evil sorcerer living in the moon. As timid and withdrawn as ever, Owen can’t bring himself to join her, and instead continues his life in his town’s drab service industry, wondering what might have been and waiting for Maddy to reemerge.
Schoenbrun isn’t hiding what the film is about for them. Young Owen plays beneath a tent that’s colored like a trans flag, and the only time we see him soften is in a very brief shot of him in a spaghetti-strapped top. Maddy gets more masculine-presenting as the film goes on, and the buried-alive ritual would entail Owen being literally reborn as a female character. The allegory of trans awareness is impossible to miss, and Schoenbrun communicates the personal strength it takes to even acknowledge that there is something so profoundly off about one’s life. The conception of a change that huge is paralyzing, and it presents itself in the way that Owen carries himself. He’s so introverted that every spoken word takes him a noticeable amount of wind-up time, stretching scenes significantly and creating sympathy with the rest of a world that has had such a hard time finding a place for him. Owen’s sweaty discomfort would indeed be hard to be around. The film occupies decades of his life, and its place in the cinema of trans-ness is found in its lack of a resolution for the character. I Saw the TV Glow withholds the grand moment of realization, and instead lands with the tiniest bit of optimism that Owen might one day break out of the deadening routine of his life.
If all that somehow went over the viewer’s head, I Saw the TV Glow would still be worthy of that most sacred filmgoing experience: the long conversation after. The film contains a tracking shot of Owen walking through the halls of his high school that rattles the bones of anyone who ever felt like they didn’t belong. Owen’s gait compared to the way his classmates carry themselves speaks volumes. Neither he nor the camera begrudges their social comfort and the way they can demonstrate their happiness by the way they lean against a locker, but it’s so foreign to Owen that he can’t even fake it. The appeal of the niche TV show and the obsessive that develops after is also a perfect cultural snapshot of the 2000’s, where the high school period of the film is set. Message boards, wikis, review blogs buried in the internet, it all evokes a period of lone individuals finding their people in long pages of text and DIY web graphics, and speaks to Schoenbrun’s connection to the link between community and culture. There’s a late film sequence that finds Owen revisiting the Pink Opaque as he nears middle age, and it’s the most gutting possible depiction of disillusionment and self-hatred alongside a threatening ice-cream monster.
Justice Smith takes a major leap forward in the lead role, distancing his movie career from the big-budget tentpoles he’s been involved with and bringing his more sensitive TV work to the big screen. With Schoenbrun’s guidance, he embodies one of the year’s best performances. Lundy-Paine’s witchy intensity is utilized to maximum effect in a centerpiece monologue given directly to the camera, holding the frame like she’s Patton. Between Schoenbrun’s wisdom and these two actors, I Saw the TV Glow would be one of the best films of the year if not for a level of self-indulgence that reeked of the most cuttable scenes from Euphoria. I don’t care how much a director is into the work of a musician, they should never spend interminable minutes watching them perform a song. Schoenbrun clearly fancies themself as the curator of a playlist, and part of the film’s mission is introducing the viewer to bands they like. I’m far, far more interested in their take on everything else that the film is concerned with. B+
Schoenbrun isn’t hiding what the film is about for them. Young Owen plays beneath a tent that’s colored like a trans flag, and the only time we see him soften is in a very brief shot of him in a spaghetti-strapped top. Maddy gets more masculine-presenting as the film goes on, and the buried-alive ritual would entail Owen being literally reborn as a female character. The allegory of trans awareness is impossible to miss, and Schoenbrun communicates the personal strength it takes to even acknowledge that there is something so profoundly off about one’s life. The conception of a change that huge is paralyzing, and it presents itself in the way that Owen carries himself. He’s so introverted that every spoken word takes him a noticeable amount of wind-up time, stretching scenes significantly and creating sympathy with the rest of a world that has had such a hard time finding a place for him. Owen’s sweaty discomfort would indeed be hard to be around. The film occupies decades of his life, and its place in the cinema of trans-ness is found in its lack of a resolution for the character. I Saw the TV Glow withholds the grand moment of realization, and instead lands with the tiniest bit of optimism that Owen might one day break out of the deadening routine of his life.
If all that somehow went over the viewer’s head, I Saw the TV Glow would still be worthy of that most sacred filmgoing experience: the long conversation after. The film contains a tracking shot of Owen walking through the halls of his high school that rattles the bones of anyone who ever felt like they didn’t belong. Owen’s gait compared to the way his classmates carry themselves speaks volumes. Neither he nor the camera begrudges their social comfort and the way they can demonstrate their happiness by the way they lean against a locker, but it’s so foreign to Owen that he can’t even fake it. The appeal of the niche TV show and the obsessive that develops after is also a perfect cultural snapshot of the 2000’s, where the high school period of the film is set. Message boards, wikis, review blogs buried in the internet, it all evokes a period of lone individuals finding their people in long pages of text and DIY web graphics, and speaks to Schoenbrun’s connection to the link between community and culture. There’s a late film sequence that finds Owen revisiting the Pink Opaque as he nears middle age, and it’s the most gutting possible depiction of disillusionment and self-hatred alongside a threatening ice-cream monster.
Justice Smith takes a major leap forward in the lead role, distancing his movie career from the big-budget tentpoles he’s been involved with and bringing his more sensitive TV work to the big screen. With Schoenbrun’s guidance, he embodies one of the year’s best performances. Lundy-Paine’s witchy intensity is utilized to maximum effect in a centerpiece monologue given directly to the camera, holding the frame like she’s Patton. Between Schoenbrun’s wisdom and these two actors, I Saw the TV Glow would be one of the best films of the year if not for a level of self-indulgence that reeked of the most cuttable scenes from Euphoria. I don’t care how much a director is into the work of a musician, they should never spend interminable minutes watching them perform a song. Schoenbrun clearly fancies themself as the curator of a playlist, and part of the film’s mission is introducing the viewer to bands they like. I’m far, far more interested in their take on everything else that the film is concerned with. B+
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