The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was I Saw the TV Glow. I wasn't able to fit this in at Sundance, where it was very well received, so I was really excited to have a chance to see it now that it is in wide release. Ninth grader Owen (Justice Smith) and eleventh grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) are alienated from their possibly abusive families and struggle to fit in at their suburban high school. They bond over a late night TV show called The Pink Opaque which follows two friends named Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan) who meet at sleepaway camp and discover that they have a psychic connection, manifested by tattoos on their necks, which they use to fight monsters, sent by Mr. Melancholy (Emma Portner), who try to bury them underground each week. They both feel more connected to the show than they do to reality and, when it is canceled, Maddy disappears. Ten years later Owen is still living at home and working a dead-end job when Maddy suddenly reappears and tells him that she has been living in the world of the show. She pleads with him to follow her there because he is being buried underground by Mr. Melancholy in this world but he refuses with tragic consequences. I really loved the fun neon aesthetic used in the trippy visuals that blur the lines between fantasy and reality as well as the original soundtrack featuring songs full of teenage angst but, more than anything else, I loved the incredibly powerful message (which is never overtly mentioned but brilliantly implied in the subtext) about the dangers of repressing who you really are. Both Smith and Lundy-Paine give incredibly transformative performances and I was particularly struck by how Maddy becomes more confident as Owen seems to disappear within himself. I think this is a movie that will resonate with a lot of people for a lot of different reasons and I highly recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment