I Saw The TV Glow is the perfect example of a movie that has so much potential to be great but doesn't stick the landing in its execution. Director/Writer Jane Schoenbrun has an interesting vision for the story at hand and there are some great themes spread out throughout the movie. However, all the interesting ideas never feel like they are fleshed out enough and when the movie comes to an extremely abrupt ending, it all just feels like it led up to nothing worthwhile. This is a movie about finding your true self and being who you really are inside, but all that gets lost in a muddled story that loses itself by the end.
There are glimpses of a truly great movie here. Everything is beautifully shot, and the cinematography is top notch. The score presents a great backdrop for scenes and does help draw you into certain moments that are supposed to be tense. Certain scenes do stand out because of the way they are shot and crafted, and these moments help elevate the movie from being sub-par. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough of these moments to hold everything together. At times it feels like the script could have used another polish to help everything connect better. In the end, it feels like there are pieces missing that would have helped make the story more cohesive. Instead, there are dropped lines through narration that are supposed to help push the story along and they never feel earned.
The characters in this story are hard to root for as they all have almost no personality. This may be intentional on the director's part, but every actor here gives a stone-faced performance and, except in a few scenes, nobody is really showing any kind of emotion. Those moments of pure emotion that are here work well and are tied in with the better scenes that do work. Justice Smith plays the lead here and his performance never reaches the level that the movie requires from him. He is fine for the most part, but this role asks a lot from him and, just like the movie itself, it never feels like he reaches that full potential. In fact, the scenes that show his character when he's younger and played by Ian Foreman work better but there's only a handful of those scenes.
All in all, I Saw The TV Glow is a missed opportunity. While there are flashes of a great movie here, sadly it never reaches its full potential and leaves a lot to be desired. It looks beautiful and sounds great but for a movie that is all about finding your true self, it feels like the movie never finds its true self by the end. This is one of the most frustrating movies of the year and had the potential to be so much better.
Grade: C
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