I Saw the TV Glow
Directed by Jane SchoenbrunTeenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs, when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show-one which conveys a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen's view of reality begins to crack.
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I Saw the TV Glow Ratings & Reviews
- rg9400November 1, 2024I was cognizant of the polarizing audience reviews for this movie coming into it, and I was fairly hesitant. I do not usually mesh well with artsy surreal movies that tend to be mostly symbolic. I find them often opaque (no pun intended for the in-movie TV show "The Pink Opaque) with very tenuous symbolism, and I often feel people read too much into those movies because they remain so indecipherable that any interpretation seems valid for something so obtuse. I was thinking of movies like mother! which I loathe, so I went into this movie fully expecting to struggle with it. However, I Saw the TV Glow, while allegorical, is also pretty straightforward. It is not muddling its message or being purposefully obtuse for the sake of appearing insightful. It has a very clear purpose, and everything within the movie serves to further that purpose. The symbolism is intentional and well thought out, and I found the way the message was conveyed to be very well done overall. It's still a strange movie, though I would not say it is really horror, although it gets very dark and does face a more existential style of dread. It's kind of a personal reflection. There is some cool cinematography, and the soundtrack is maybe the second-best of the year behind Challengers. I think some sections drag on, and there are scenes that probably should have been cut out because they don't go anywhere, especially during one concert scene mid-movie. I am shocked to say that the more I think about it, the more I honestly really enjoy it. It tells an intimate story about living a life that is true to oneself and the cost of burying it. It talks about the courage and leaps of faith required, and it explores the power of childhood nostalgia and magic found within media. It's a story about not being passive and a call to action—a movie that feels simultaneously autobiographical while also holding up a mirror to the viewer. I strongly urge viewers to try to dig deeper than the surface level plot because the movie isn't overly dense. There is meaning here, and you do not need to dig that deep to find it. You will be rewarded with a unique movie that might just make you reflect on the way you live your life.
- Cuban Marquez5h agoA profoundly sad and dark fantasy story. While it may not be for everyone, it will certainly stick with you if you are willing to give into the moodiness and deep emotion of this tale.
- VarunJanuary 26, 2025I had two wildly opposite experiences during the film. The first 45 mins I found to be really slow paced and even though I understand they wanted to do a long portrayal of childhood, it felt like a set up that took too much time and my mind started to wander. But the final 45 minutes absolutely transfixed my body, mind and soul. There’s an 8 minute monologue from Maddy that resonated with me so hard. Since I immigrated to the other side of the world when I was 15, dealing with culture shock, identity crisis, loss of friendships, heartbreak, questioning the role of memories, spending so much mental energy dealing with emotions and thoughts that I’d never experienced before and how that affects your perception of time, the metaphor of her not feeling like she was in the right world, right body, right era was so relatable. We also drown ourselves in media to escape, and especially when we’re kids, these shows etch themselves into our memories so deeply we start to romanticise about them but at the same time since they’re not real activities we did ourselves but just a form of consumption, we don’t have a normal sense of time. If you had asked me what I did in 2017, I literally could not tell you because I can’t remember anything from that year as all I did was consume media and this pattern repeats itself in chunks in the following years. And then you start wondering how the years keep increasing but the quantity of experiences do not match your age whatsoever because your life is not yours anymore and your attention has been hijacked by corporations. This movie has such a mesmerising style in conveying the power of nostalgia, how the art and beliefs you consume as a kid have a way stronger subconscious impact than anything you watch as an adult. It’s weird how the transformation from childhood to adulthood isn’t as smooth as we expect it to be and feels almost like a complete break. My older life and inner child feel so completely alien to me, like those memories have been implanted by Mr. Melancholy which is an apt name because that’s the emotion I feel when I look back at photographs and videos of my childhood. I think it’s super important to reckon with these feelings in order to get in touch with your authenticity but most of us just keep on going with “life’s priorities” as Owen chooses to do for years until one final day he has a complete breakdown. No matter how long you spend ignoring your true self, it will come back to bite you one day. A breakdown is an opportunity for you to recognise the problem and change, but you can easily just go back to repeating the same patterns like Owen and “get busy dying”. I also appreciated that they did not choose suicide as a metaphor to escape the world but chose being buried alive as the key which I interpreted as dealing with your Jungian shadow self, as you can never kill your demons but can keep them buried once you learn to face the truth everyday and practice living a life that attunes your inner and external realities. This movie reminded me of Past Lives but here it’s a weird, hypnotic, dreamlike, metaphorical exploration of similar themes. One of my favourite colours is purple so it was cool to see the visual language drenched with a neon aesthetic of different shades, it never feels overdone and enhances the otherworldly, somber and surreal tone of the film. I thought this would be a traditional horror film, but the horror it taps into is something real that many experience every single day, the angst and pain of not being able to embody your true self, to not have anyone to share it with and feeling stuck wondering if that day will ever arrive where you feel real freedom and happiness. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the second half of the film and thought certain themes were brilliantly explored, whether the slow pacing leads to a payoff or not is completely dependent on the relatability to your personal life and if it’s style of storytelling succeeds in invoking certain emotions and memories within you.
- Henry KleinschmidtMay 29, 2025Cracking the egg. Beautiful discovery story wrapped in a thriller setting
- ScottDecember 15, 2024Schoenbrun’s previous project We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was a bit to experimental for me but everything I liked about it was refined and crystallized here: a movie both intensely and inextricably linked to the 2SLGBTQIA+ journey and yet also broadly accessible. Who among us hasn’t struggled in their identity? It’s a both a powerful celebration and dire warning: media can show you sides of yourself you could never imagine (or maybe don’t dare to). And that can liberate or obliterate you.
- MystyPyApril 18, 2025I watched "I saw the TV Glow" not knowing anything about the film. For the first 30 minutes or so I didn't think much of it other than it had an amazing soundtrack, and it had a clearly unusual and twisted nostalgic "90s kid" feeling to it. But it soon changed into a dark emotional rollercoaster. I'm honestly still quite shocked at how profound and raw the emotion invoked from this film is. For some, I saw The TV Glow will open your mind, tear it apart and throw it back in your face, leaving you completely emotionally defenseless; for others who cannot connect, you may just think it's "weird". If you can relate however, it will likely change you.
- ayayronApril 6, 2025Mystically alluring if she was right, horrifying if she was wrong
- DigitalDisappointmentFebruary 2, 2025Genuine trash. Random stupidity, loud noise, irritating noise, nobody actually acts like they would in reality. The whole script is piss poor.
- RussianSpyNetNovember 18, 2024Simply beautiful.
