I Saw the TV Glow

I was on the fence about watching I Saw The TV Glow for a while. I was not impressed by writer/director Jane Schoenbrun's first film, We're All Going To The World's Fair, but I figured I shouldn't write off a director after just one movie. Is two enough? Asking for a friend. I do want to give the movie and Schoenbrun some credit here. On a technical level, TV Glow is impressive, and there's two ways it accomplishes this. It is clear that the direction of the movie is an undiluted representation of Schoenbrun's vision, and I commend it for that. TV Glow's purpose is to make the viewer uncomfortable, and the direction accomplishes this; shots linger a few seconds too long, weird angles are used, sometimes Justice Smith (the main character) will be narrating and he'll be doing it looking right at the camera. TV Glow is a movie all about delivering its story and related themes -- that of two people experiencing body and gender dysphoria and the different life paths they take because of it -- and it wants to relate the discomfort and unease the characters are feeling through the visual medium. I cannot deny Schoenbrun did this. I may not like all of her directorial choices, but I admit they work for the movie. Schoenburn's direction is also appreciated in the show-within-the-movie that the two main characters are obsessed with, The Pink Opaque. It's an homage to young adult dramas of the 90's, especially shows like Goosebumps and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. When we see bits of the show, it is shot in 4:3, has the grainy look of an old VHS, the font for credits is decidedly 90's, and the acting is spot-on for those shows. Speaking of acting, I also want to give a nod to the two lead actors, Justice Smith and Jack Haven. They start off sweet, two outcasts who find each other and bond over this cult TV show, and their friendship grows, but also so does their obsession with said show, which exacerbates the mental health issues both of them have. These performances become especially good in the second half of the movie when they're adults. Haven's character Maddy breezes back into Smith's character Owen's life. She is now more self-assured, more confident than she has ever been, but also (because the movie is told through Owen's eyes) maybe unhinged and delusional. Owen, meanwhile, is quiet, detached, moving through life without showing any outward emotion, but obviously sitting on something inside of him that is raging to come out. I've seen criticism of his performance that calls it meek and lacking the emotional punch needed, and I couldn't disagree more; the whole point of Owen is the meekness. He's bullied himself into not accepting his own feelings out of a perceived obligation to make the world around him run smoother. His constant quiet and reserved state is a survival technique, albeit one that is slowly eating him alive. It goes back to the story the movie is telling through allegory; when Maddy comes back to town, she's embraced the person she wants to be. She has found her true center, and it appears to Owen like madness. Owen is living in denial, he is unsettled and he can't dare face how or why, so his life is one of a quiet, dissatisfied forward shuffle. And yet, while I can commend all that, I cannot call this a good movie. I am a cishet white male. I know nothing of the experiences of anybody outside my demographics, and I would never pretend to understand them otherwise. I cannot have first-hand experience of the challenges faced by women, black people, Muslims, LGBTQ, ASD, or any other category outside my own. The magic of a movie is that it can, if done well, provide a window into those experiences. I still don't know what it is like to be a young black man in Los Angeles in the early 90's, but Boyz In The Hood gave me a glimpse into it. Moonlight showed me the experience of being black and gay, which has its own unique challenges even in the AA community. Gentleman's Agreement reveals the dark, insidious forms of antisemitism Jewish people face in polite society. TV Glow might be effective at reaching people who are trans; I can't speak to it, other than to say I've seen writing about it from trans people who feel moved by the movie. All I can do is relay what I felt when I watched it, which was nothing whatsoever, because Schoenbrun is too wrapped up in the cleverness of her metaphor and pushing it to its outermost edges. It's not that the movie disguises its themes in allegory, that's perfectly fine. Cinema is filled with excellent movies that use one scenario to say something about something else, but the depth to which the metaphor is indulged in TV Glow distracts and obfuscates the potential impact for those of us who aren't trans and want to understand better. It also doesn't help that reiterating its point through the allegory is all this movie has to offer. Once you clue into the theme, which shouldn't take more than 20 minutes, you've got a clear line of sight to the end. If the movie was building to something, if there was some kind of payoff to all the trippy visuals and twisted narrative, it might even make the pervasive nature of the allegory forgivable. But there's nothing to offer. The first act, second act, and third act might take place in different circumstances or time periods, but they all say the same thing, and by the time I got to the halfway point, I was tired of the narrative plane circling the runway and steadfastly refusing to land, and there was still so much to go. Again, I get what Schoenbrun is going for, and I could even concede the argument that for the story being told (one trans person embracing their identity, one suppressing it), it makes sense. But just because it makes sense doesn't make it entertaining to watch or something that a non-trans person can wrap their arms around. Maybe it wasn't made with that consideration, and if so, that's Schoenbrun's choice, and I respect that. But that's the other cutting edge of the creative sword; a movie might be made that speaks to a certain group of people, but it won't just be that group of people who see it. And those people have opinions. I'm not Jewish, but Schindler's List managed to communicate to me the atrocities suffered by the Jewish people in The Holocaust. I'm not black, but In The Heat Of The Night showed me how racism mutated into a polite condescension in the post-segregation south, and how even an AA man in a position of authority could be viewed as lesser just because. Even movies that use symbolism can still be effective in conveying these unique experiences to outsiders; the use of water in Moonlight to symbolize vulnerability at pivotal points in the main character's life, or the stone in Parasite being a symbol of wealth and prosperity and obsession with it. Metaphor can be a powerful tool in storytelling. But Schoenbrun's script is obsessed with the metaphor, it doesn't allow the story or the characters to evolve past it and relate its themes in a universal way. The metaphor becomes a prison the movie can't escape from, and as the movie goes on, I could feel it trying, like during Maddy's desperate monologue in the tent, or the last five minutes of the movie, only for the script and the direction to force it back into the rigid constraints of the allegory, which is ironic given the frustrating journey of Owen. He feels stuck on the rails of a life that does not match who he is, and the movie feels much the same. In the end, this leaves me in a frustrating place I Saw The TV Glow, where I can respect Schoenbrun for the technical aspects, the actors for their performances, and Schoenbrun's dedication to bringing her vision to life ... but if it was also the intent to relay the trans experience to those who will never feel it, I have to say TV Glow falls woefully short. I don't hate it like I did Schoenbrun's previous movie, which was a movie undone by naval-gazing arrogance. TV Glow never has World's Fair's "you just don't get it" smarm. Instead, TV Glow falls victim to another threat independent filmmakers face: the inability to step outside their art and see it how others, especially those not in their frame of reference, might see it.