Overall: 58/70
I put off watching this movie for a while, simply because I don’t deal well with horror films, or any slightly scary elements at all really. Eventually, though, the reviews combined with my own constant intrigue led me to finally give it a go. And I’m so glad I did, because I was not scared in the way I thought I would be.
‘I Saw the TV Glow’ is a 2024 film by Jane Schoenbrun, starring Jack Haven and Justice Smith. Described as a horror and fantasy, it follows the journey of students Owen and Maddy, who bond over a TV show called ‘The Pink Opaque’. However, the hold the show has on them, and the ideals it represents, create an emotional journey around navigating growing up and finding your true identity.
There is a moment in this film when Owen walks through the school corridors to the song ‘Starburned and Unkissed’ by Caroline Polachek. We never see his face, following silently from behind. Purple writing appears all over the screen, scribbled notes that fade and are replaced again and again. I don’t know if it was the music, the writing, or remembering the way I would walk through my own school, but that scene is the one that has been replaying in my mind ever since the film finished. I see it, I hear it, I feel it, again and again. It makes me want to cry.
The concept of the dangers of nostalgia, building up to the moment of realisation that ‘oh, what I thought about all this was really not true at all’, runs throughout the film. Owen’s inability to comprehend this shock to his perspective is a feeling everyone has felt; it destabilised our worlds once, as it does to his. The way we can become entwined with something to the extent of being unable to let it go is presented as just as damaging as severing yourself entirely from the world you once began to build. Maddy can be seen as representing freedom, but she’s also demonstrating an inability to break away from the world her childhood was based on; ‘The Pink Opaque’ saved her, and whilst that was a good thing, it seems to have saved her only by removing everything else that could hurt her. She becomes part of the fictional world to avoid the real world; she can’t seem to survive the future without leaving reality.
Owen, in contrast, demonstrates the extreme other end of the scale. Rather than be tied forever to his childhood, he attempts to sever links to the show and thus to the world he might have made for himself. Although he sees it as just facing reality, he faces it so much so that he refuses to change what he sees as his determined path. By beginning to view the show as childish, and Maddy as crazy for believing in something more, he locks himself into a life of mundane predictability, unable to reach a potential that might have been waiting for him. Maddy removes herself from the world to live a fictional, yet fully realised, life; Owen attempts to accept his fate, and lives in the real world, but unhappily so. Neither are fully accepting of themselves; neither are able to exist alone.
The actual show itself, ‘The Pink Opaque’, seems a perfect example of the kind of program children see as an escape. A protagonist with a destiny, with a purpose, is always appealing, because it represents everything anybody ever wants. Combined with a sense of being bigger than just yourself, the two leads of the show present Maddy and Owen with an alternate life. A life in which they can be more than they are. The version of the show we are shown when Owen rewatches as an adult is also deeply understandable. The sudden dumbing down of the scripts, the fakeness of the effects, the childish nature of a once grown-up seeming thing – it is relatable to witness a once cherished scene being discovered as nothing like the memories. The way our perspectives shift as we grow will never not be slightly eerie; for how long will something be our greatest pleasure, before we blink and realise it was only ever awful. Worse still is the awareness that the thing itself was never what changed. It was, and only ever will be, us.
Including an almost full rendition of ‘Claw Machine’, performed on film by Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridges, was an artistic move that cemented this film as one of my favourite displays of filmmaking. It didn’t, as you might expect, break apart the narrative in a clunky way, or feel a distraction from the characters. Instead it cemented in the emotions of the movie – the sense of hurt, of loneliness, of longing – and allowed the audience time to sit with those feelings. It let the narrative glow bright and become more than a story; it became a performance.
I’ve also got to discuss the design and lighting of this movie. The use of colours is incredible; the world depicted is one of purples and reds, and everything needed to create a simultaneously emotional and uneasy display. The way Maddy and Owen view ‘The Pink Opaque’ with such reverence for its appearance, is the way that the audience view this film. We are engrossed by the beautiful display before us, and so are even more caught off guard when it starts to shift toward a darker narrative path. Perhaps it is this contrast that creates such an emotional tone; the comparison of a visually stunning, gently lit image, and a tragic, painful narrative. Each make the other more starkly obvious.
Owen is overall a rather quiet character; he is subtle in his conversations and movements. This makes the few instances where his voice drowns out all others become scenes of great emotional intensity, which have huge impacts on the audience. When he screams out ‘This isn’t my life. You’re not my dad’, as he is held under the shower, there is a rawness and vulnerability to the outburst that shook me to my core. The sudden departure from his usual appearance, and the sudden insertion of a jolting scene amongst rather calmer shots, all add to the effect of, for me, a huge feeling of sadness for Owen; I felt so distressed for him that I almost felt sick. This is later followed by perhaps the most evidently heartbreaking moment of Owen’s, when he screams amongst the singing crowd. The initial cry felt so understandable to me, someone who is also easily overwhelmed in moments of high energy noise and overstimulating situations. He then goes on to add to his distress through cries of ‘help me’, and a truly painful beg for his mother. Owen expresses an emotional reaction that many probably feel and keep hidden. His break in usual character shows just how far he has been pushed, and just how much he might regret the choices he has made. His fear is just as strong as his desire for more, for the truth, and it is within that space of dilemma and indecision that he remains. It is terrifying to watch someone in that place.
Maddy becomes a friend reaching out in a desperate attempt to save someone who resists her pleas. Whether her begging is out of concern for Owen, or personal hope that something about him will release her own full narrative potential, it is unclear. It is clear, however, that Maddy wants Owen to be that figure she saw glimpses of growing up; she refuses to leave him behind. Even though her initial disappearance, and absence after their reunion, indicates she won’t wait for him, the writing on the chalk makes evident she will never forget.
Maddy explaining her view to Owen in the planetarium dome at the school is such a magical and difficult moment. There felt a divide between a sense of understanding and belief that she has to be right, and a sense of logic that refuses to go away. We know that it can’t be true, the world she describes, and yet, we don’t stop listening. Because her words are words that we can’t help but want to hear. The world she talks off is a place that would render the life we are fighting through as never the one we were destined for in the first place; surely, then, she must be correct. Because surely this cannot be it. Her desperation that life has to be more than the passing by of years is so real that you have to take a moment to let it all wash over you. She demonstrates the way life can feel, especially at that age. Her vulnerability is refreshing.
Owen seems torn in the way the audience are. The part of him that longs for a different life, one that he is being given a chance to maybe reach, is fighting the part of him unsure of how he could ever do that. The uncertainty of if Maddy is insane or simply just free remains constant through the film. We are never given the answer; we aren’t allowed to see. We have to follow Owen as he chooses a path of continual repression and internal hurt. There is no way out, for him or us.
But there is. A film that has been building towards such a devastating image of adult Owen ends with a hint towards a future that is much, much brighter. Whether Owen ever feels able enough to be the person he is meant to be, who he wants to be, we are never going to know. Yet there is a chance for that, we are told. The end is not now. ‘THERE IS STILL TIME’.
Criteria:
Narrative – 8/10
Cinematography – 9/10
Design/Aesthetic – 10/10
Sound/Music – 9/10
Emotional Response – 8/10
Enjoyability – 8/10
Bonus points (criteria that only applies to some films depending)
Nostalgia – 3/5 – made me nostalgic for all the TV shows I ever loved.
Made Me Cry – +3 – I did cry a little, yes, and a lot internally. I think if I rewatch this alone I will find myself shedding a few more tears.
Overall: 58/70