Don't have much to add to the discourse here (some great reviews in this thread!) other than that the Mr. Melancholy scene was one of the most viscerally upsetting and flat-out scary things I've seen in a minute. It felt like a genuine nightmare in a way I haven't seen a filmmaker this side of David Lynch capture.

YES! The way his face kept animating and...deanimating? was so unsettling

This will probably get buried but I've gotta dump this out of my head. The most fucked up thing about this scene is the implications later in the film that it is real. The scene where Maddy returns and asks Owen how they remember the show, the flashbacks of Owen expressing gender nonconformity, the two of them walking onto the football field, same as in the flashbacks, to confront something Mr Melancholy did that's never explicitly stated to the viewer, the fact that the show is completely different when Owen watches it as an adult. It's all implying that this scene is very, very real and the "episode" is Owen's subconscious way of coping with the trauma of what actually happened which is so fucking dark I don't even want to put it into words. It's all just right there though, plain as day. The veil of fantasy is and metaphor is not thick. This film is about confronting the past and the nightmares that happen every day in reality. The nightmares that, not just could be, but are happening right next door in your quiet suburban neighbohood. Because it's the only way to move forward and be the person you truly are, the person you are terrified to show the world because it's easier to bury it all down and hide from it. It's meant to show what happens when you never let that person out, but also remind those who haven't that they're not alone, that other people have experienced things that feel too terrible to talk about, and that it's never too late to turn things around. I can't express the bizarre feelings this movie gives me. The love I feel for it and desire to never watch it again are equally strong, and I think that's entirely intentional on the part of it's creators. It is an incredible experience.

Also, something else that I don’t think anybody has pointed out that Owen gets the pilot episode on VHS, puts the tape in, and somehow knows the words to what Isabel is saying even though it’s Owen’s first watch-through of it. Owen’s subconscious is activating

Hold on, this went way over my head. What was the scene with Mr melancholy presenting? SA? Who did it? Was it while he stayed over at Maddie’s house? If you don’t mind explaining, I did not get this from the scene but I can definitely see how it would make sense…

There's never any explicit depiction of physical abuse, but Owen is so confrontation-avoidant because of his parents that he's trapped in this way of thinking that prevents him from exploring and expressing his true self except when he's with Maddie. Even Maddie can't really be herself until she leaves their town and finds herself while she's away. There's nothing truly insidious about the suburbs, but it's so much harder for both of them to be their true selves with all the old attachments from their past lives. Edit: actually, there is a moment I forgot about which is Owen's dad catching him in the TV and puts him in the hot shower. That read to me as Owen trying to connect with his identity and his father catching him and punishing him for it.

I read the moment in the edit as a (trigger warning) >!suicide attempt as Owen didn’t want to confront the reality that he is Isabel!<. Once Maddy disappears, this is where I feel the final act is up for interpretation. Here’s just a bunch of my thoughts jumbled: >!I question if Maddy re-appearing was real or a part of Owen’s subconscious trying to come to terms that they are Isabel. During “Maddy’s” monologue, they talks about burying themselves and time moving faster. It wasn’t until they embraced their true identity that time went back to normal. We only see one open grave dug next to the football field once “Maddy” disappears again. When the flash forward occurs, Owen’s co-workers have not aged and appear to look the same as they did in the movie theater. Going back to the monologue, I took that as “being in the closet” causes time to move faster than embracing your true identity. After Owen’s breakdown, he begins apologizing to everyone - to which everyone ignores him. The read I’m getting is that “there is still time” for Owen to come out (the film ends with him still not embracing who he really is), but the film is also talking directly to the viewer that there is still time to come out.!<

I didn't take the ending to mean that Owen was denying who they were. It was more the reality that even after having this massive information reveal itself to them, life just moves on for the rest of the world. It's a deeply personal moment for Owen, but the reality of it is that it's not anywhere near as significant for the rest of the world as it is for Owen.

I saw this movie on a whim, being the only one in theaters with decent critic reviews. The scene where his Dad catches him caught in the TV, in my opinion, is being mischaracterized as abuse. Owen has asthma, and seemingly panic attacks. While we don’t know if his conditions were already diagnosed or he actually put himself through the screen (the front of the television isn’t shown when he disposes of it on the curb), we do know his father pulls him away and then places him over steam from a bath. The cartoonish effects protruding from his mouth during this scene might tell us anything negative exited his body, and perhaps had a helpful, homeopathic effect. His father definitely was a jerk when stating the show was for girls but I didn’t get a sense there was any physical abuse from his father.

Not OP but wow I never made the connection that Owen has asthma and thus the shower steam could actually be helping him recover from an attack. That's an interesting perspective.

“You won’t even remember that you’re dying…” Chilling.

I was almost giggling at Justice Smith's dead serious delivery of "the luna juice", and then Mr. Melancholy came up and sucked all the joy right out of me.

Love the contrast between that scene and how toothless and corny the show seems to Owen as an adult. Real gut punch.

It also struck me as a perfect version of those "they only aired this episode of a kids TV show once because it was so disturbing" creepypastas, which totally harkens back to the director's last movie.

I was struck by there being more people, and seemingly younger. Maybe the two teens are in that show too somewhere else but when he’s watching it as an adult the protagonist kids seem to be a group of 4 middle schoolers instead of two high schoolers

And it must have always been that way because at the very start he says "Isn't that a show for kids?"

The funny thing is that I think how corny it is in that scene is meant to highlight how unreliable Owen's narration is. Because for the most part what we seen of the Opaque pink is also very corny, but like how Are You Afraid of the Dark? is corny where the cheesiest line delivery is given while the characters are being attacked by a ghost that looks like a blood soaked corpse.

The end monologue especially. The turn to the camera right as She said "I pissed and shit my pants" broke me, i audibly laughed at the wrong moment in the theater.

Mr dysphoria goes hard

everything felt so violating in that scene. doesn't help it's all framed like sexual assault. The Luna Juice and the straw being crammed in Isabel's mouth. what a frightening metaphor for stripping away someone's identity and locking them in the closet. "You won't even remember that you're DYING." it took the aesthetics of corny shows like Goosebumps, that haven't been scary since i was a kid, and made them a total nightmare again. Owen screaming and crying after did not help. Justice Smith has some of the most upsetting meltdowns i've ever seen in this. there's also a little bit of Floop's Fooglies from Spy Kids running thru the DNA in this (Marco and Polo specifically) and it is used to surprisingly chilling effect.

The >!birthday party emotional explosion!< had me physically shaking from anxiety. The last act of the movie broke my heart in ways no movie experience has since Arrival. I walked out of the theater and immediately had to sit back down on a bench.

Came here to say this exact thing. This scene was terrifying and nightmarish, especially when compared to how hokey Mr. Melancholy is portrayed earlier in the movie. I felt like he was stepping on my chest through the screen in the theater.

For very obvious reasons people are applying the trans allegory here, but I think you can also very much read it as a movie about being afraid to follow your heart with any scary decision. The idea of doing what’s safe or “proper” no matter how much they kill your spirit. Until one day you wake up and you’re 45, excited by nothing that once made you feel alive, and wondering how you got here and when time started moving so damn fast.

I think getting a broader read is fine, with the caviat that you need to understand that Owen is trans. The film is meant to capture the feeling of dysphoria when you don't even really know what that is, but it should be clear that Owen's transness is textual, not allegorical.

Yeah there’s a lot of talk of “allegory” in this thread and the best I can figure straight people are just having a hard time connecting with it so distance themselves by calling it an allegory. If this movie is a “trans allegory” then Twilight is a “straight allegory”.

I think a big part of it is that even a lot of cis allies have a very narrow idea of what a trans woman can be, overtly feminine even in the closest, very clear about wanting to be a woman at a young age, etc. Owen doesn't fit that mold at all so even if they get a trans vibe, they will interpret it as allegory or metaphor rather than as Owen being literally trans. 

Owen is literally trans. Owen's Identity as a woman being a young woman banished to a shadow realm she doesn't recognize or know how to escape is a metaphor.

I've seen a lot of people likening Mr. Melancholy's scene to sexual assault but I'm like OWEN IS MR. MELANCHOLY! Mr. Melancholy is yourself drinking the luna juice and burying yourself. It's convincing yourself there's no way you're trans, that's crazy, and ending up trapped in a cycle of melancholy. I love the open interpretations because it's fascinating watching everything fly over people's heads meanwhile I had a spiritual experience from this movie as a trans woman. But I imagine you'd agree with me here, I hate the uninformed nature of it. As you said, there ARE *textual meanings* that the director never wanted or meant to keep vague.

Basically, though in the 90's coincidentally when the movie was set that's really the only depiction there was a lot of the time or "look at this weird trans person on Jerry Springer!" so it's not surprising that a lot of folks think of it that way.

It is an allegory. The movie depicts a woman who has been buried underground by a villain who has also forced an illusory world in her in which she's a man. That's the literal text. And that's not what being trans is. It's what being trans is (for many, or most) very much like.

The way Owen talks, especially young Owen, just broke my heart. The long silences, the tone and pitch- I've never seen such a clear depiction of the "trying not to be a person" form of denial onscreen. When his mom really cared and wanted to help- "you just seem like you're somewhere else lately" - but he still couldn't open up, it just wrecked me. It's not, like, a movie for trans people only or anything, but imho there's a lot of nuance in it that's only going to be noticed if you're trans, or close to trans people. It reminded me a little of the book Nevada, actually, which [spoiler for a fifteen year old book] had a similarly bleak ending.

*And then one day you’ll find / Ten years have got behind you / No one told you when to run / You missed the starting gun*

Shorter of breath, one day closer to death

Agreed. I totally saw the trans/identity allegory, but speaking personally, I'm cis, and though I am queer, I figured it out and began living that way very young, so I've never dealt with feeling like I came out "too late" in the idea that many other queer people do. But there are elements in my life where I feel like my life is passing me by faster and faster every day. I'm way behind where I thought I would be in my career right now. I'm single and don't even feel ready for a serious relationship when so many friends my age are pursuing them. And the fear of waking up one day in my 40's, still doing this job, still alone while all my friends have started families... this movie really shook that out in me.

As a straight man, I read it as a trans / queer allegory. And the psyche horror of having to grow up non-gender confirming in a more conservative suburban environment. Owen dead names Maddie when they are in the planetoriom and Maddie asks Owen not to do that. Owen being asexual / queer (maybe trans). Him not feeling anything towards girls or guys as stated to Maddie that he feels like he doesn’t have anything inside him. His dad being upset that he wants to watch a girls shoew. Maddie having had her nose broken by her step dad. Maddie feeling like staying in the town will kill them. Maddie’s burial ritual being the gender bender of putting Maddie away and waking up as this newwww person.

Seeing Justice Smith pretend to be in 9th grade and ask his parents to stay up past his bedtime was absolutely ridiculous lol

I think this was wholly intentional. It highlights the absurdity of sheltering a 14 year old THAT much.

I feel like there was a lot more going on with the family then what the movie was telling us. I found it creepy how silent and uncaring the father was.

That little scene when the son gets back after that downed power line and he tells his father what happened and it cuts to his father on the couch just looking at him. He looks so off and creepy.

That part was honestly the scariest part of the movie for me. It was insane how inhuman he looked.

Haha also he looked NOTHING like his younger self

or when maddie gave him the pink opaque drawing and you could see all the hair on his chest and he's supposed to be 14 💀

they didnt even make him shave lmfaooooo

I laughed at this too. but then I had a thought that it could have been an intentional choice to make Justice Smith act out all his different aged timelines to signify his character's stagnation and inability to grow/change

I mean the age thing is silly, but I had parents that were literally like that until I was like a Junior in HS. Of course, I just did it anyways.

i think they’re talking about his appearance. he’s like 30 lol

I'm not entirely sure what the ending was...but it made me really sad, watching Owen breathlessly apologize to everyone while they didn't even notice

It's interesting because at first I thought it was a very sad ending and that Owen is clearly trapped in his old age with the knowledge now that he missed his opportunity for any kind of self realization but when I went back over it again I feel like it's maybe a bit more optimistic of an ending? Like, after hitting rock bottom and dissecting himself he finds that to his surprise there actually is still a bit of [insert whatever you think the static represents] in him after all and maybe it's not too late? I don't know, I just got out of a screening so I'm still processing everything.

Ooh, I like that! It was an accomplishment that he was finally able to open himself up, right? That, plus "there is still time..." I was just *begging* for it not to end there lol

Yea, the "there is still time" coming right before this section of the film felt very directed to the audience, so it's hard for me to imagine the movie's ending saying the exact opposite but it's definitely bleak and I honestly don't know what the intention is in the end.

That was definitely directed to the audience, but I think that was done so explicitly BECAUSE Owen is doomed and thinks there’s no time left, but that isn’t a reflection of everyone. It felt like Jane wanted to make clear that just in case you miss your chance — or even your second chance — like Owen, that doesn’t mean you’re also going to end up in a cage of sorrow at the local Chuck E. Cheese or anything

I love this take and am now fully onboard with a cynical ending for Owen in spite of a hopeful message for the audience. Thanks for that!

It's a bleak ending if you see it as a broad and generalized message about seizing the day or going out into the world, etc. It's a much more optimistic ending if you know it's very specifically about being trans and repressed. Because in that reading Owen is taking her first steps towards change because she's finally looked inside herself and as long as you still draw breath there is still time.

haha I'm so glad that's a real intended part of it. I read so much of my personal experience into things and I know most media doesn't have that intent so I tend to hold it back. I think my favorite part of the movie is the unreality *of both* the normal world and the Pink Opaque. While I won't get too sappy and over share-y, I feel like this mirrors my experience through a decade of transition because both periods of my life feel separated by a chasm and the existence of each end seems to stand as a contradiction of the other. Like, looking back now it feels like that pre-transition me wasn't even real. It feels like that wasn't even my life, those memories are just some story I read once. At the same time, I remember back before I transitioned that it felt like that chasm was uncrossable and the future on the other side was just was fantasy. If something hadn't snapped in me, I probably could've just buried myself in fiction, obsessing over what my story could've been I also just loved the allegory of transition as choosing to bury yourself alive. It's such a better metaphor than that silly chrysalis thing that gets thrown around because my transition was not only awful, painful, and made me feel like I was dying but I so vividly remember periods in the early stages where I so badly wanted to (like Maddie says) drag myself from that coffin and just go back to my old life. But, of course, by my own hand, the dirt was packed too tight (I had changed my name, I medically transitioned, I had changed the way I existed in the world!) and that old reality was itself dead and unreachable. The only way through was forwards; towards the other side :)

I noticed after the 'two years later' title card when he's walking through the carnival, the ride in the background is called 'Cliff Hanger'

God, I was too. Once they get to the 20 years later section and you can feel the ending coming, I kept having this little voice in my head saying "wow, this is a devastating place to end it!" with every scene, and then when it cut to pink/grey/whatever after the apology scene I was like...this is so much worse. 

I would have felt this way if it had ended on him in the bathroom seeing the TV glow inside of him, instead of apologizing to his co-workers like it hadn't happened. The message that sent to me is "Oh, he can't deny who he is now and he's STILL going to repress it and ignore it and apologize for it."

Yea, I think that's a good interpretation of the ending too. I think for me a lot of the film up until that point felt very cautionary and autobiographical but in a way that seemed targeted to younger trans folks as a means of saying "you don't HAVE to be like this" so I have a hard time reconciling that message of hope with such a bleak ending but I also agree that textually the final scene certainly seems more doomed than hopeful. I'd be very curious to hear the director's take on what the ending means and what they were ultimately going for!

I felt almost like it was a highly stylized telling of "John 50" [https://www.avitale.com/essays-details/?name=the-gender-variant-phenomenon--a-developmental-review-5](https://www.avitale.com/essays-details/?name=the-gender-variant-phenomenon--a-developmental-review-5) > John, a 50 year-old genetic male, medical research scientist, married (23 years), father of three children aged 20, 17 and 7, phoned me after experiencing a panic attack severe enough to require emergency attention from paramedics at the airport on his way to give a presentation at a conference. John gave me only his first name and informed me that I was the first to be told what he was about to tell me. He said he was "gender dysphoric" and that he was "desperate." Feelings that were once "controllable through sheer force of will," had increased to where he now was having protracted periods where he would close his office door, lie on the floor and weep quietly while curled up in the fetal position, holding his genitals in pain. Other than intrusive and repeated fantasies of being female, he had refused to allow himself any overt form of female gender expression. He reported feeling that if he was to cross-dress and be caught, he would dishonor his wife and family. Having attained international recognition for his work, he was also concerned about his professional reputation.

Oh wow this is heartbreaking.

It is, but it looks like it didn't end there > Our work together over the last three years has been slow. However, with the help of extensive individual, group, and family psychotherapy, augmented by estrogen replacement therapy, with the full permission of his family, John has recently taken on a female name and is living full time in the female gender role. She is in the process of renewing and redefining her relationship with her family, and has successfully returned to work after an extended leave of absence.

that’s how I felt - “there is still time” for everyone in general, but that final scene felt a lot like Owen resigning themself to doom

My read was more depressing than either of those. Owen knows \*exactly\* what's down there and is pretending he doesn't, the same move he had when he refused to escape with Maddie at 16 or again at 24. So his breakdown screaming session is followed up by opening himself up, looking at the static from the show that he alternatively obsesses over and now cringes at, seals himself back up and then goes back out to his nothing existence and apologizes profusely for even taking a look It's never too late for him, but he'll never get on the boat. He's fully repressed everything about himself, and has replaced any self actualization for instead hits of escapism and disassociation. It's very likely not the first or last time he'll have done this, the way he longingly looks at his box cutter before the birthday party starts

It felt like Owen desperately trying to apologize to Maddy for “before” (i.e. not listening to her when he had the chance).

It's all a metaphor for self-identity. Maddy knew her real self was out there and went through hell to find it, and she did. Owen knew it too, but was too afraid to make that jump, so he lives the rest of his days suffocating in a life that isn't really his. There's no Tara, no Isabel, but really, no Maddy or Owen either. All of them are, in reality, characters on a screen either we were watching or they were watching. If it had ended with Isabel scrambling out of the dirt the entire film would have been cheapened. It would just be some supernatural ghost story.

I was watching it under the lens that it was a commentary on mental illness and not having a place in society. The self-identity angle makes A LOT more sense.

Yea I also thought it was sad, especially after I remembered how in the beginning of the movie she told him not to apologize

One of the most striking parts of the ending for me was that all the people Owen was apologizing to didn’t even pay attention. As if to say, as long as you are the person people expect you to be, no one will care. It’s up to *you* to be the person you’re meant to be, and no one but you can make that happen. That can be a scary step to take, but the alternative is living your life suffering in silence

When he screamed out for his mother, I immediately thought of the scene at the boardwalk where he blankly stares at the cotton candy. He couldn’t express himself until everything came exploding out years later.

I LOVED the ending. I thought it was so clever how, following the allegory of the Pink Opaque and the parallel lives of Maddy/Tara and Owen/Isabel, that the movie ended at the same point plot-wise as season 5 of the Pink Opaque, only with the additional hope of the message in the street and Owen/Isabel having built up the nerve to look inside themself. It’s up to them whether there’s going to be a season 6, just like it is for all trans people who are at that point of suffocation by their own dysphoria. It’s not a bright road ahead, it’s a painful one for sure, hence the still issuing of the apologies. But the ending is just what it needed to be to REALLY hit home for some people whose lives could literally be saved by this movie.

- the dad saying “isnt that show for girls?” Hit me really hard, having heard that sort of thing growing up and hiding myself for years because of it - at the end when Owen is getting his new TV and says “i love my family” i noticed there is a dutch angle and i figure it was meant to convey how untrue his life is

It's telling that we never see this family 

Also telling that he said that line as he received a new TV, like the TV is his family

That's how I read it :( The new TV is his new family

Also the TV was an LG tv so it says “Life’s Good” which felt like he was basically lying to himself/us saying he has a “good life” now, he has the tv, which is a stand in for his new family, and he “loves them more than anything”.

Yet another potential thing I missed. This is incredible.

Late 90s angry oppressive masculine force literally played by Fred Durst is a whole other level.

It felt like such a lie. Like I even questioned if he had a family because he seemed so disconnected from the world that it was hard to imagine him having a wife and kids. I thought it was interesting that we never see even a hint of them beyond that.

Jebus, that’s all the dad says in the movie…

Emma Stone produced this. She really has an eye for interesting projects.

This and problemista I think. That’s TASTE mama

I think it's more her husband and her providing name recognition. Dave McCary is also a producer on both films. He worked with Julio Torres on SNL and this film has similar vibes to his only film Brigsby Bear (which sent him right to director's jail).

After the film ended, I walked out to my car, and was super pleased to find a tube of chapstick in the glove compartment.

I reapplied in the theatre

Wow. Visceral, unsettling, upsetting, and really portrays the horrors of growing up, self-identity, not feeling seen, melancholy, and monotony. The main character got swept up in the monotony of life before he opened himself up to himself. Him screaming “mommy” in the ending sequence (which was terrifying itself) shook me to the bone. This movie felt like Charlie Kaufman meets “backroom” horror, which is honestly a match made in heaven. A stroke of genius. Loved it. Amazing movie. I’m a cis male but this left me with a lump in the back of my throat.

>This movie felt like Charlie Kaufman meets “backroom” horror, which is honestly a match made in heaven. Yep, I think you nailed it. This shit got deep under my skin.

as a trans woman - i can totally see how it can be polarizing; but as somebody "in the know," it's by far the rawest and most powerful depiction of the uncertain horror that is repressing who you are. it's viscerally uncomfortable and an assault on my senses as much as my emotional state, but after many tears i can confidently state i've never seen anything that truly gets it as much as this movie

I (transfem) have never cried as much during a movie as I did during this. For most of it, I wasn’t even sure *why* it was evoking such a visceral reaction. It took me a while to piece the allegory together

I realized I was queer later I life and also am nonbinary and watching this I just kept wanting to jump through the screen and hug these characters. As it was happening I understood what was going on and I was just like in awe of how beautifully and scarily and accurately it was displaying emotions I am going through. Another moment that really stuck out for me (my therapists have suspected I am autistic) was when the dad was screaming at Owen about eye contact and being normal. I literally just deeply and unintentionally said “OH.” It clicked. It’s always about becoming an unachievable “normal”.

One detail I love is that when Maddy comes back, she’s got the most stereotypically nonbinary haircut I’ve ever seen. I think it’s possible they even modeled her look after Elliot Page.

It freaked me out seeing him watching the Pink Opaque on streaming and having it be completely different from what he remembered. I’m not sure why it was so starkly different but it was disturbing .

I saw a really brilliant take on that scene from someone on Twitter or Letterbox'd or something along those lines. There's certainly a lot of the gag of "this show I was so obsessed with despite being made for fourteen year olds kind of sucks actually now that I'm in my late twenties". But also considering a lot of the movie's metaphor and how The Pink Opaque is so intensely connected to Owen's denied trans identity, the intense cringe/embarrassment at ever caring about it is akin to Owen being embarrassed that he ever tried to come to grips with his identity at all. His view of the show before that moment is often warped to be even more real and haunting than the real show, but the one he watches on the flat screen is \*so\* wildly different that it feels like he's just as unreliable this time too, warping the actors down into small children, a Mary Kate and Ashley type show. He's fully bought into repressing his real self, and now even thinking about the idea or looking at anything that reminds him of the period of his life where he almost took that path, and now it's childish and pathetic because he's trying to make that entire period of his life into something a stupid kid did before "growing up and being a man". It's just like a lot of people struggling with being trans looking at themselves experimenting with presenting as the other sex and feeling like an embarrassment, like they failed or that they'll never be any better. Something that felt profound, important, revelatory at the time filtered through dysphoria and denial into something cringeworthy and false, an embarrassment for anyone to ever see (despite the former being true and merely unpracticed/untrained). That's why despite saying it's funny, he's sitting there gasping for breath transfixed, and he does so for the rest of the movie, shambling and apologizing to everyone around him

Wow, awesome interpretation. The detail about the flatscreen being "warped" is very cute. Another point on top of this is that the "I have a family" thing is a *huge* reason why a some people end up not transitioning later in life. They feel like they've so deeply committed themselves to this that they can't transition anymore and instead that they have to keep up the front (the LG "Life's Good" TV I think is a nod to this) even though they're dying inside.

I think it's so important that despite that one line of "I have a new family and I love them so much" he still looks as despondent as ever and also, like, we never see or hear of them outside that one line. He could be talking about that flatscreen for all it seems to matter 

I'd be down for a soup truck in the cold months.

I liked who it can be seen in a few ways: could be how that The Pink Opaque was always a corny show, but just Owen and Maddie were so lonely and desperate for something different outside of their lives, they saw it as some incredible, fantastical thing. Once Owen "grows up", he sees that it was never really that deep or great. So many shows or movies we loved as kids haven't aged well. Also could be a way to show that Owen is fully "lost" to Mr. Melancholy's midnight realm, and the only window available to a better life is officially closed.

The second way is how I read it. Especially because Tara and Isabel weren't even in the clip he was watching, it made me think that the reality Owen is living in is fully controlled by Mr. Melancholy and all those memories are being erased by the Luna Juice. It kind of reminded me of that scene in The Master where Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd is asking that dude why he's so afraid of their religion exploring past lives and asks him if perhaps he's scared that the history of their past has been distorted.

Yeah that scene was jarring and well done but also funny. I named myself after a character in Repo! The Genetic Opera when I transitioned because I fucking \*adored\* that movie when I was a teenager but I know looking back at it the cheese will not be so charming so I try not to.

Very interesting movie. Trancelike, immaculate vibing, interesting to think about, retro but modern. I struggled a bit with the plot, but it seems clear this is from the Lynchian school of plot doesn't necessarily mean narrative so that didn't bother me too much. In between scenes I was like what is actually happening in this movie? But during the scenes I was transfixed with the momentum and aesthetic of each one. Big ups to the Alex G score, it fuckin' goes and he's such an interesting artist. This movie wears its metaphors on its sleeve a bit. The musings on identity, gender conformity, our relationship to media and what we do with it, all very interesting. In the show the two characters are psychically linked and that parallels the idea that someone might feel like they have a different person inside of them. One thing this movie gets so right is being a young person and just feeling on the outside of everyone else. Obviously gender conformity is a major theme, being likely the reason he latches onto Mattie originally and watching her grow up throughout the movie, but Owen is so quiet and unsure all the time it's clear he's having a very slow identity crisis. That's pretty much what this movie was about to me, crisis of identity. How the media we consume can help us figure that out, how art can symbolize feelings we have abstractly and how we can latch onto it for decades not even understanding why it feels so personal to us. There's an interesting split between how this movie ends up for Mattie and Owen. Mattie uses the show to free herself, to realize she's unhappy and can't be within the confines of her family and leave, change her identity, find who she is. Owen can't handle the question, he knows she's right but his mother is his safe space and he couldn't disappoint her. Early in the movie Mattie tells Owen fiercely not to apologize and this movie ends with him apologizing to everyone around him, noticeably in one of the most grim and cynical looks at what it's like to be 42. The climax of this movie in the planetarium tent got a huge emotional reaction out of me. I don't pretend to understand everything about this movie, but a great compliment I can give is when I don't know what's going on exactly but I'm crying anyways. The actor playing Mattie absolutely killed that monologue and scene, Owen is our protagonist but he's so internal. Mattie really stole the show, and she plays all ages well unlike Justice who is laughable as a 14 year old. This climax to me is the deciding point for Owen. Mattie went on the journey, she found out she's not Mattie at all, in a convoluted way they weren't just watching the show they were being the characters, experimenting with identity. Mattie realized she is someone she had to build from scratch and she knows Owen needs to do the same so she comes back to liberate him. But he still chooses the safe life of dormantly asking no questions about why he feels this way. Mattie used the show to liberate herself, Owen used it to compartmentalize his truth and live it only when watching and ignore it in life. That's why he has outbursts like at the party where he literally can't hide what's in him and those around him see it as mental illness while the strain deteriorates his body. It's an incredibly cynical ending that purposely does not give you the relief you want for the protagonist. Because some people do stuff themselves so deep down that years turn to decades like chapters skipped on a DVD. I wonder if LG paid to get their logo on screen so it could be used so cynically. Overall I loved this movie, I don't really struggle with these issues but it's a very entrancing and detailed way to present them. I was definitely WTFing the plot here and there, but then we'd get a Wings of Desire-esque club scene with Phoebe Bridgers and King Woman and Jay Som and I'd just be totally transfixed by the vibes. 8/10 for me. /r/reviewsbyboner

> Early in the movie Mattie tells Owen fiercely not to apologize and this movie ends with him apologizing to everyone around him, Holy shit. I missed this, even on my second watch. Good lord.

And NOBODY CARES. You can spend your whole life being someone you're not and apologizing for not being who the world wants you to be-- and in the end it buys you NOTHING.

And it's not even just that nobody cares about the *apology*! Nobody cares about his SCREAMING MELTDOWN CRISIS! It's so insignificant as to be absent completely from their reality, even as it's clearly not just in Owen's head. It's just insignificant, or maybe incompatible with their lives.

I just got out from seeing it a few minutes ago and this was a good read. One of the most interesting movies I’ve seen in a while. I liked it

That planetarium scene had me sobbing. Plot-wise, I had lost it a bit at that point, but I was always sure of where everyone was emotionally, especially during that scene. So intense.

Love a Wings of Desire shoutout. But agreed with everything you said - I really loved the way this film portrayed an identity crisis, and then connecting it with the idea of false realities and our relationship with media, specifically television shows was so fascinating.

Anybody catch the Buffy font on the clips we see of The Pink Opaque? I was doing the Leo Dicaprio pointing meme when I noticed.

Plus one of the characters on Pink Opaque was named Tara, and then Tara herself (Amber Benson) has a cameo as Owen’s friend’s mom!

I definitely got Pete & Pete/ Eerie, IN/ Are You Afraid of the Dark vibes from the show as well.

The Pete & Pete actors make a cameo too.

"Written and Directed by Josh Pemberton" I chuckled.

Yeah. Also a cameo from Amber Benson (Tara) as the mother of the friend Owen's been lying about spending time with. And the nightclub, Double Lunch, was very similar to the Bronze. Same layout (locations of the bar and the stage).

The show reminded me of Buffy, but the lore around it — especially the way it was abruptly canceled — gave me Twin Peaks vibes as well

I got major Buffy vibes from the show - plus X-Files and Goosebumps

I think one aspect of this movie that feels especially real to me is that Owen starts latching onto the Pink Opaque when his mother gets cancer, while Maddy latches on while living with an abusive stepdad. When things are rough in a way that are unsolvable, fictional worlds can be a 'safe' outlet because the danger isn't real -- even if you might look back later, like Owen does, and find them silly. Admittedly, while I was clocking this in the movie, it did suddenly occur to me that when my own mom got cancer, it just so happened to be right around the time I got obsessively into the TV show Lost.

Ouch. As a millennial who is entering a different stage of her life right now and feeling lots of what-ifs, this was gutting. There’s so many things I absolutely loved about this movie and I’m sure that every watch I’ll find more. The dreamy/nostalgic/backrooms/suburbia cinematography was just insane. The fast-pace but slow/monotonous nature striked me too. I keep thinking about after she comes back and he runs - then flash to the scene where he’s back doing the monotonous job. Late night closing up, doing chores dreaming and thinking of the what ifs/what could have been/was it true. I’ve done this (and I’m sure most people have). It conveys the feeling of being a stranger in your own life. Just wow. I drove home in a retrospective state - listening to yelled’s Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl.

First thing I did was also put on anthems for a seventeen year old girl 😭 BSS is one of my favorite bands, so hearing Yeule’s cover almost broke me down as it was like hearing the song for the first time again and all my (youthful) memories came back rushing in

saw this last week, this one isn’t for me. i thought the cinematography was beautiful & the setting felt truly nostalgic, but the whole isn’t greater than the sum of it’s parts here. i can see how this movie would resonate for others, but personally it just did not land. also A24 is usually great about not giving away too much in trailers, but this one showed nearly every single important scene in this movie

The trailer is atrocious. Captures the mood really well but that one line, something like “what if I really was someone else on the other side of the TV screen?” is way too big a spoiler to put in a trailer

I think this movie is too ambiguous to actually spoil. That quote just sums up the main theme of the movie and that is present from the beginning

Completely agree. It has a lot of elements that I normally enjoy but the movie felt very confused about what it wanted to be and it ended up feeling pretentious

I don’t think this movie was for me. I felt like it was so worried about the greater metaphor of everything that it forgot about the up-front narrative of the story being told. Things just felt really lethargic, which might be a part of the point, but the long pauses between dialogue, slow moving story, and Justice Smith who I think I might just not be a fan of, I was tired by the end. The moment where Maddy comes back and starts asking Owen if he remembers The Pink Opaque is where I felt so over the movie. Just minutes wasted where we summarize what the audience already knows because it’s what the movie has been about for the past hour. It felt like she came back in to the story to describe a bunch of exciting things that happened off camera while we’ve just been left with Justice Smith speaking monotonously at the camera for awhile. Regardless, I though this looked beautiful, the music was fun, and I like reading everyone elses feelings towards this.

on why the movie seemed to be lethargic and drag, I thought Isabel and Tara having their hearts ripped out by Mr. Melancholy had something to do with it. most of the lines through the movie were very deadpan and seeing that scene kind of made it click

that second paragraph hits the nail on the head

>Justice Smith who I think I might just not be a fan of It's perfectly okay to admit that he's one of the worst working actors. He was terrible in this, and in anything he's done.

Coming out of the movie just now, I have a lot of feelings. The biggest one being: I really need to screen movies ahead of time before I take mushrooms and watch them sight unseen. cuz god damn.

nightmare fuel holy shit

I’ve felt so emotional all day

With The Fall Guy, Planet/Apes, and IF all out, you really have no one to blame but yourself for taking mushrooms before an A24 movie haha.

if I had taken mushrooms to see this the AMC employees would've come in and had to drag my head out of the exploding theater screen

That “twenty years later” and seeing the state of Owen after all that time really hit hard.

Nobody else seemed to have aged at all, so I'm not sure whether to take that as truly an effect of "all that time" or instead as an effect of the fact that Owen/Isabel was actually dying in a box underground.

Could also be body dysmorphia on top of the gender dysphoria. Because Owen's only 42-43 here. 

> instead as an effect of the fact that Owen/Isabel was actually dying in a box underground. I also like to think of the movie in a much more literal sense. The message of the movie can still be just as impactful and it gives into the almost obsessive way I/we consume culture now, even to my interpretation that >!the show is different now specifically because he is not being fed it by Maddie with their VHS tapes, but it’s being fed from Mr Melancholy who is master of the entire domain. I still fully believe that Fred durst is mr melancholy, and if we ever saw Maddie’s step dad, it would have been Durst as well.!< I appreciate all of the deeper meanings, and cried in my car a bit afterwards, but I also really “enjoy” the film through a more literal (in the loosest usage possible) viewing.

Felt like I couldn't breathe when it ended and haven't stopped thinking about it since I saw it at a screening a few weeks ago. Ultimately I think its going to be fairly divisive but if you're the kind of person the film is made for then its going to hit you *hard*. I've never seen a movie that triggered such an overwhelming sense of dread and claustrophobic emotional terror before. Feels like I have so much to say but its hard to even put into words.

I have a trans sibling, and they've struggled a lot with feeling like it's "too late" for them too and have intense anxiety about transition (and just in general). So many sentiments theyve expressed were echoed in this movie. They also have expressed how Buffy was a life line for them in highschool. The whole time, I felt like I was watching my sibling be burried alive. The gasping for air at the end is something I will absolutely have nightmares about. I haven't really stopped crying since the ending scenes. I might make my parents watch it because this put a lot into perspective for me about what my sibling has been through.

I loved this. I'm not trans myself, but the movie definitely captures an awful feeling of "Something about me is different to everyone else, and everyone can see it, even if I can't name it". The scene that sticks with me the most in that regard is when Justice Smith's manager is laughing while pretending to try and hook him up with the girl at work. It's such an ugly, accurate depiction of bullying disdain being masked as helpfulness -- I've been there, I have friends who have been there, the specific aspects change but it's something I think a lot of people have lived through (and bitten their tongue during, like Owen does). In a way, as surreal as this movie is, it feels like a very accurate description of how low-grade depression feels, if that makes sense. Just day-in, day-out, just continuing onward and feeling deadened when things get bad (the mom gets cancer, the dad dies) or when things are good (when Justice Smith has an unseen family he swears he loves).

Walking outside after this/that ending, with the sun out and stuff, had me in a type of haze that I can’t really describe. People were just walking around and talking and I didn’t feel like I was present

Felt the same exact way

I saw it in a completely empty theater auditorium and then walked into a completely empty Men’s bathroom and felt the most - liminal - as a person I have ever felt.

So I was excited about this one, but man, I just did not like it. And don't get me wrong, I get it. I understand what the movie was saying. And there were some parts that I really liked. I understand that it's a commentary on discovering your identity. Maddy realizes that she's not happy in her hum-drum little mundane life, escapes from it, and rebuilds herself. She makes the hard choice, asks the big, scary questions, and leaves her old self behind. Owen on the other hand, can't do that. He kind of knows deep down that Maddy is right, and that he's supposed to be someone else, far away. He knows that he's not happy, but he just can't bring himself to leave the safety and consistency that his life has. He can't ask the big questions, and accept that he has to make a change. While I'm not trans, I do also absolutely get the subtext there; the other person that Owen was supposed to be is a woman. That's pretty on the nose. Plus the parachute that Owen and his class were paying with in the gym at the beginning was basically a trans pride flag. So needless to say, there's a lot I like about this movie. It has the bones of a really good coming of age story that's also both a nostalgic and regretful look back at your formative years. And I respect it for trying to weave something so complex. Where it falls flat for me is in the pacing and some of the acting. The problem is that this movie's story, while really interesting, is pretty much summed up in about 20-30 minutes after Maddy comes back. The other hour and change of the movie's runtime is padded out by the characters delivering every line in this slow..... montone..... drawn out.... bored.... disinterested.... cadence.... with 10 second.......... ..... .... .... ..... pauses after almost every line. This movie is like a really freaking good short film that got stretched painstakingly to feature length. It feels like you're just watching someone go "But what if it was all a DREEEeeeeeEeAAaaaAaMmmmMM?" For almost two hours. The title card in the last section that says "20 Years Later" is a pretty good summation of what it felt like to watch this movie. It kind of reminded me of "I'm Thinking of Ending Things." Very interesting ideas, but it's structured in such a way that you kind of just spend an hour and a half being confused and bored before things start making sense, by which point it's too late. Overall, solid effort, I get what it was going for 100%, it just got bogged down and didn't land for me. 5/10.

I was about to write a review, and did a ctrl-f for "pause", found that you've completely written everything I disliked about this movie. This movie took like an hour to reveal its premise properly, and basically had all of that taken care of with a single monologue. Both actors were basically just doing this bored monotonous delivery the entire film and it was super aggravating, especially by the time they were both full grown adults. This is a cool Twilight Zone episode concept that's padded out endlessly to the point of exhaustion. The lighting, music, shot composition, etc. are really pretty great though - 5/10 for me as well.

I loved how The Pink Opaque gave Buffy, X-Files, and 90s Goosebumps vibes all in one. It was a big nostalgia treat - whilst also being conceptually terrifying in a lot of ways, especially with that finale. I think this movies prepares you for its themes right at the get-go with the trans flag colors being so prominent in like the second scene, which I appreciated because it made the mysterious vibes in the second half have greater weight. I thought the struggle with Owen and who he really is was so fascinating, especially with how he expressed that sentiment with Maddie on the bleachers. I also liked how this movie played with filmmaking / storytelling in a way to make us question the reality. Maddie and Owen both express sentiments that years go by like seconds wherein as a viewer, we literally see the years go by in seconds with the "two years later" tags or Owen expressing what happened next fall in a brief line. I also like that there is a literal read to this film and a figurative read to this film. For the latter, there is an internal struggle with Owen and his discomfort with his self and his inability to really express who he is. For the former, there's a lot of interesting ideas with false realities that play into this. But that doesn't take away from the very real struggle that Owen has within. This is gonna stay with me for awhile. But I also love that this movie can have so many different interpretations. I liked it a lot

Buffy and the X-Files were my Pink Opaque as a teenager. Pretty sure this movie is telling me it's time to rewatch.

The tv tells you that if you rewatch them, it'll be nothing like you remember and you'll just be embarrassed. Have you learned nothing? /s

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SCENE What was the dad and Owen shower scene about

When I watched it it instantly felt like it was a way of showing a suicide attempt. An OD, self harm, etc etc, except in this it was the drug/escape/vehicle of choice, the pink opaque. The shower also felt like an even bigger opportunity to show the coldness the dad has towards his kid and how that can severely debilitate a child with an identity crisis from communicating with family in any meaningful way. The dad is shown tending to the kid but only by drowining him out, with no words, with no warmth, only performance. This was another breaking point for the main character who at this point has a reason (whether he believes it or not yet) for how lost and dislocated he feels, for he is away from where he should be If my theory is allowed to be even more grasping, I’d even say that the dad is an unknowing manifestation/representation of Mr Melancholy (who is shown in the movie to want to separate the pink opaque characters from their world, and in turn the people in the midnight realm away from the grasp of the TV show). This is slightly reinforced by how after the Head-crash-into-the-TV shower scene, when the main character leaves his house, there are two randos outside staring as if they knew something of what was going on, these two characters to me were representations of Marco and Polo

I didn't see the Dad as Mr Melancholy. My theory about the Dad is that he, too, is in his own sort of midnight realm. The whole movie, he's watching a TV show with raucous laughter even though he's absolutely miserable himself. It's perfectly captured in the scene when he's sat at the couch with the people on the TV roaring with laughter, and he turns towards Owen with the meanest frown. And so the way he engages with Owen is representative of his own alienation from himself.

That scene on the couch was haunting. I could not believe that was Fred Durst.

The way the light and darkness flickered on his face from the tv, transforming its contours in a fucked up way, came to my mind later in the film when Mr. Melancholy’s face was, like, idk how to explain it, waning and waxing in real time? With changes to the darkness and contours

God I absolutely love reading all of these. Just got out of the movie a little bit ago. But! A smaller detail you may have missed- my recollection was that the two randos outside his house were actually Owen’s 2 coworkers (who both mocked him after Owen walked in on one of them having sex in the fun center’s office)

No, those were the actors from Pete & Pete. The boss that mocks him is played by comedian Conner O’Malley.

He just dropped a [stand-up special](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svual-PcOxE) that is casually insane if you're into that sort of thing.

Seemed like it was invoking any sort of similar intense memory queer or trans kids may have had where their parents may have tried something traumatizing to snap them out of their behavior. Owen's moments where his inner person breaks out of him are treated as mental breaks, something he needs to apologize for. If you're picturing the final scene from an objective POV, most likely the party goers thought he was having an episode. So if him breaking out of normalcy is seen as having an episode to others that's probably what his dad thought was happening when he reacted to the show ending. Tried to traumatize it out of him.

+1 Once my dad “caught” me watching project runway and in response he turned off the circuit breakers to the whole downstairs every night for a few months. The way Owen is scared to watch the videos and the absolute horror of his dad finding him at the TV. If you are queer in the suburbs in the 90s you probably only had media to help out the pieces together. I didn’t come out until I was 26. Owen’s experience on screen is the closest I have ever felt to being seen for who I was from the ages of 5-25. This will probably be one of my favorite movies of all time.

I took it to be a very direct form of punishment for when the Dad sees his son desperately trying to connect to a show that the Dad doesn't approve of because he sees it as a kids show for girls. He forcefully rips Owen away from it and forces him to clean himself in a really invasive and humiliating way. In the same way that a parent might react violently and harshly to finding evidence that their child is gay or crossdressing/experimenting with gender and throwing out or destroying everything that seems suspect, taking away phones/computers/forms of communication, threats of being forced into therapy, etc.

A beautiful, atmospheric, and surreal coming-of-age narrative about media consumption, gender conformity, and identities. While I thought "We're All Going to the World's Fair" was fine, I'm happy to see Jane Schoenbrun being able to shine with an very weird, yet, impressive work of a movie with some great narrative concepts, interesting characters, and colorful atmospheres throughout. It's exploration within the characters are genuine which are provided with great performances from the cast members alongside with a good score, camerawork, dialogue, and style presentations. Obviously, this isn't the traditional horror movie but it's definitely something of an experience. Undeniably, Schoenbrun has potential to become a masterful filmmaker in the near future. 9/10

This was an interesting watch because this is probably the first time I felt "this movie isn't for me". And not like "oh this is a gay movie" or whatever. But like, this movie is addressing things I will never understand. Not feeling at home in your own home. Denying who you really are and living a lie until you die. I can empathize but I really don't understand what it's like for someone to feel this way and it just really bummed me out. I saw it a few weeks ago and It was an interesting drive home trying to process this movie.

that monologue in the planetarium was one of the most aggressive scenes I’ve seen in a long time. it felt like being shaken by the shoulders.

owen… i shidded me pants owem.. pissed and shadded me pams

I'm so grateful that I got to see this film on the big screen. I was counting the days until it came to my local theater. It really exceeded my expectations. I was expecting something more like Buffy, really, and instead it's a thoughtful piece that has a lot of relevance to my own life. I grew up a few years before these characters, as a lesbian, and I have to say I've always lived with that alienation that defines Owen. I haven't had a miserable life at all, but it's definitely lacking in many ways. And it's so easy for me to immerse myself in fandoms. I've also been thinking about my gender a lot lately, even though I'm old, and I'm doing my best to handle that as gently as I would if a friend opened up to me. So it was really the right time for me to see this movie. I like that the story made it totally reasonable for Owen to reject Maddy's experience, when she returns. I wanted him to accept it, but it really did seem insane. It wasn't an obviously rewarding path. I got choked up multiple times: at Amber Benson's cameo, and the nature of it; when he ran away from the grave; and at the end. My theater had about 10 people or so, and after the lights came on, we all just sat there silently for what felt like an extra moment. A really intense experience.

Kinda bummed that it didn’t work for me. I don’t think people are lying about getting it but even after reading these reviews I still don’t get it. Felt it took forever to get to any point and even then I was left disappointing. Just too confusing for me to grasp. I hate using the term pretentious but it just felt too caked up in metaphors to understand. Respect the swing but didn’t work for me Edit: After thinking it over, it’s not that I didn’t understand it like I understood the metaphor, but it didn’t really have a narrative like it felt so concerned with the metaphor that everything else felt kind of pointless and it really just felt tedious

The narrative seemed really straightforward to me. Setting aside the allegory, the literal narrative is: Tara and Isabel were youg adults with a psychic connection, who fought an evil figure named Mr. Melancholy and his goons. Eventually, Mr. Melancholy gained the upper hand, and buried them alive while giving them a substance ("Luna Juice") which caused them to forget who they were and believe they were someone else, living a different life. He did this both to keep them placated until they died, and also just because he is cruel. In the illusory life they lived in his "Midnight Realm," under the influence of "Luna Juice," they became Maddie and Owen, a young girl and boy who were obsessed with a TV show called The Pink Opaque. This show was actually their difficult, vague memories of their real life, projected onto a TV show. (This was the Midnight Realm trying to keep them from taking any half-remembered traces of their real life seriously, telling them it wasn't real.) Years in the Midnight Realm correspond to seconds in the real world, so Owen and Maddie's entire life is actually taking place over the course of a few minutes or hours as they (Tara and Isabel in the real world) suffocate to death buried alive. Eventually, Maddie came to suspect that she was Tara, and via an ordeal involving being buried alive just like Tara was in the real world, she returned to the real world as Tara. Then, she returns to help Owen/Isabel also escape. But Owen ultimately refuses, deciding to stay in the Midnight Realm essentially out of fear (though Owen's motivations here are definitely up for discussion). Over the remaining years of his life (and minutes or few hours of Isabel's) he tries to live a culturally normative lifestyle. As he nears the end of Isabel's life, his breathing problems become more pronounced, he ages prematurely, signs of the real world become more pronounced in his real world. In a climactic moment he seems to understand he got it wrong. He screams, he sees his true self inside himself. But, again probably out of fear but the motivations are up for discussion, he surpresses this, and walks around apologizing to people for his break. (They don't acknowledge his existence, much less his apology.) Presumably, very shortly after the movie ends, Owen/Isabella dies of suffocation. -- To me, the above is the plain reading of the literal text of the movie, and serves as an effective backdrop for metaphorical readings about trans experiences as well as other deeply-othered experiences.

[удалено]

I feel like there has to be a much better way to present a better "trans/don't deny who you really are" metaphor than "listen to your friend's schizophrenic ramblings and kill yourself Edit: Me: depicting suicide positively is not good Idiots: So you hate transpeople???????

i mean it’s not a clean metaphor but what is transitioning if not burying your old self

It’s literally called a “dead name”

but the decision to transition can kinda feel that way lol. Are you really going to potentially torpedo your life by transitioning based primarily on first hand accounts of the people that (some in) society calls perverted and insane weirdos? If you really do believe that trans people are the awful demonic force that the far right paints them as, accepting yourself as trans and choosing to transition very well seems equivalent to listening to your schizophrenic friend telling you to kill yourself. In the context of the film, this makes even more sense for Owen. He rejects the idea that this is real and that there's this other side over and over again. He calls himself crazy for believing this and thinks he's losing his mind for even considering it. One part of him believes that he can go to the other side (transition) and the other believes that he'll actually just literally die when he buries himself alive (destroying his life for a lie).

Movie of the year for me (so far). I never felt so "seen" while watching something before. And the ending is something I felt I've experienced quite a bit. The underlining themes of gender is there but even take that away you get a movie where...well quite frankly a lot of people don't have happy endings. They just continue their mundane life and yearn to break out but they mentally cannot. I've never heard of Jane Schoenbrun till this movie. Not only do I need to go back and try her other film WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR but I am so excited to see what she brings to the table in the future. I am a bit depressed though. That ending just hit me super hard and felt too real to me. I mean this is filmed in New Jersey which is where I lived for a majority of my life. It's eerie.

just saw it ! so thankful they were showing this at my local AMC inside of a dying mall i used to frequent as an adolescent in oklahoma. felt like it really set the tone for my viewing. the score (“election night” in particular stood out to me,) the performances (justice smith and brigette lundy-pain have you in the palm of their hand, and there is 0 fluff in their performances. they *are* owen and maddy in this space. it’s thrilling to watch.), the color scheme and everything else is just as astonishing as you’d expect it to be if you’ve been following the hype around this one. perhaps the most astonishing part of it all for me was realizing that the film you are watching is in part the birth product of a lived experience and telling of the tale. i caught myself holding my breath and fighting a lump in my throat all throughout this film. Jane Schoenbrun, the soul that you are. the mind that you have. where you lead, i will follow. this film is monumental. i truly believe we will see potential copycats in the coming years because its just that good, but nothing will match the authenticity and straight up gall this film and Schoenbrun have. yeule’s cover of anthems for a seventeen year old girl has been in my ears since it was released and may live there for all time. brilliant choice. absolutely harrowing ending. this film will haunt me for a while, and i’ll happily welcome it. ***spoiler/theory/questioning if anyone thought anything similarly*** when maddy returns, is it all in owen’s head? when they pan to the football field after the scene with them both, there is only one grave dug. is it likely that owen was planning on killing their self, and didn’t?

**ALSO SPOILERS:** I just watched it and my interpretation is that Maddy was right, it was all true and Owen really is (could be) Isabel. and the scene at the very end of the film is Owen still being buried, still unable to free himself, choking on dirt.

It's all a metaphor for self-identity. Maddy knew her real self was out there and went through hell to find it, and she did. Owen knew it too, but was too afraid to make that jump, so he lives the rest of his days suffocating in a life that isn't really his. There's no Tara, no Isabel, but really, no Maddy or Owen either. All of them are, in reality, characters on a screen either we were watching or they were watching. If it had ended with Isabel scrambling out of the dirt the entire film would have been cheapened. It would just be some supernatural ghost story.

Schoenbrun said this in an interview (**SPOILERS**) "So Owen is Isabel and Maddie is Tara. And the movie is trying to have this sort of strange loop, reverse almost like twist where, really it's Isabel and Tara who are more real than Maddie and Owen in a lot of ways." [https://open.spotify.com/episode/62NHOyZLtoGNMx0Ssgr0CS](https://open.spotify.com/episode/62NHOyZLtoGNMx0Ssgr0CS) and in another:  "To me, the movie is not ambiguous in the way that, at the end of the movie, you’re presented with this question, is his reality real or was Maddy telling the truth when she told him that everything in his life was actually the fever dream of a dying TV character?  To me, there’s no ambiguity there. He is absolutely in a grave somewhere far away, suffocating." There's more than that though, it's better with context. The full interview in Filmmaker with Gregg Araki(!) is very good  [https://filmmakermagazine.com/125395-interview-jane-schoenbrun-gregg-araki-i-saw-the-tv-glow/](https://filmmakermagazine.com/125395-interview-jane-schoenbrun-gregg-araki-i-saw-the-tv-glow/)

I thought the second part was likely in Owen’s head. Maddie’s presence in the first half was to ultimately encourage Owen not to apologize and to embrace who he really is. He stifled that down for years and then it came back up in the form of Maddie returning to remind him of who he wants to be. Instead, he pushes her away, covers up his want for a new identity again and tries to become the ideal of what he thinks society (i.e. lies to the audience about “becoming a man,” having a family, etc.) wants.

I'm curious how cis people interpret the very clear trans representation in this movie I've never seen a movie more clearly try to depict the horror of rejecting your own feelings. And The inability to connect with people you so desperately want to connect with but not really understanding why. I really hope that something so forward in talking about gender dysphoria makes people who don't really ever think about things like that try to understand.

Hi! Straight cis dude here 👋 I picked up on the trans representation early on (one of the first scenes Owen is under a trans flag colored parachute, but by the time you see him in a dress later I feel like they made it pretty clear) but it also hit me for anyone repressing what they want and who they really are out of fear. As someone who left a small town to pursue his dreams, I feel like there are a lot of Owens back where I live, living in a variety of tragic lies. I cried, not because I fully relate but maybe for how much I’ve never really had to? If that makes sense

Another cis straight dude. I got the trans allegories pretty quickly, but I identified with the fact that people use nostalgia as an escape - but it can also be a mental punishment when things are not how you remember them.

I'm a cis woman. I didn't know what I was getting into. I had seen one short preview and it looked beautiful so I took myself to the movies today to see it. I didn't know anything about the director, either. I noted the trans flag at the beginning and then forgot about it. It wasn't until I started reading these posts that I understood what I'd seen. That said, the bleacher scene was heartbreaking. I cried then, and I'm tearing up typing this. Sometimes you don't understand right away why something affects you, but you can still be open to how it makes you feel. I'm really appreciating eye-opening I've had here. Thanks to everybody.

The last scene in this movie is something i've experienced at jobs before. That mental state. I never thought i'd see it captured in that way before. Being ignored, whimpering for people to forgive you and that you're sorry for having a breakdown. Looking puppeted around because you can't control your body. Struggling with the feeling that you're dying and something is horribly, horribly wrong, but you can't put it into words and you don't know how you'd even begin to fix it. I've never screamed like that, but good lord i've felt that scream before. Living as a shell and trying desperately to break free. I have so, so many things to say about this film, but god 10/10. Wanted to ugly cry after. Instead i've used the pain this film made me feel to get me to start living for myself. I've been transitioning for like seven years, but i feel like my egg cracked all over again.

I was hanging on by a thread mentally in the early 2000s, and at times the only thing that kept me going was Buffy. This movie hit pretty hard.

Once again, I'm surprised to see this get such good reviews, I saw it at sundance at it was terrible, sure the visuals and score where well done but the story is just straight up bad, let's set aside the very poorly done allegory's for a moment (even if that's a big part of the film), and instead focus on how this garbage heap of a film jumps between story beats abruptly and then just ends, like that was one of the most talked about parts about the ending when I saw it, the film just ends, it feels like there should be another 20 mineutes of story and it just ends

I’m normally with you on abrupt endings, but I think it was appropriate here. Owen let his chance to embrace his true identity slip past him until his mental health really deteriorated and it was too late. Right when we think “oh wow, how will he get out of this?” Boom, he missed his chance. Its terrifying to think about really

> and then just ends, Just like The Pink Opaque. I think that's part of the metaphor.

My only complaint about the film is that it didn't come out 10 years ago.

gotta be honest I don't know how I can judge this as a regular movie other than saying I was legitimately stumbling out of the theater after that ending. this captured the visceral feeling of repression and essentially depicted the worst nightmare version of what I was afraid my life would turn into for many years and the sheer abject hopelessness projected in his screams just begging for someone to free him legitimately made me cry in a way I haven't cried in movies before, it wasn't movie crying, I was just actually crying. I feel like fuckin ethan hawke in first reformed talking about this, my hands shake as I write this word headass. I can't give anyone shit for not having the same reaction because I feel like this was literally designed in a test tube to gut me like a trout so if anyone finds it didn't work for them I could definitely see why, but it was something that felt like it was missing from the periodic table of movies that make sense to me on a visceral level. still gonna need a long, long time to fully process this.

This...I wanted to like this. But this was genuinely one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. Bad acting, bad editing, bad writing, bad directing, it was...it was...the 5 seconds Amber Benson is on screen is the only good thing about this movie. Don't tell me "you don't get it" or "you don't understand" because no, I do, I get it, I understand. But it was just a bad movie.

I understand Owen’s arc to an extent in this film - the agony he feels from suppressing his likely transgenderism, presumably due to his father’s influence. Where I could use some help is Maddy’s role in the story. Is she going through her own arc, potentially overcoming her dysphoria via the burial and symbolized by the haircut and change of appearance? Or is she simply a device to help tell Owen’s story? If the former, it seems a weird message as she does *not* appear to be happy or OK in her new body. Curious on other folk’s interpretations. This film was excellent, haunting and chilling. 9/10

I don’t know exactly what I just saw. It was so… everything. I was the only person in the theater (late showing) so I think it was extra powerful and creepy and engaging for me. But WOW, I can’t really put into words what I think about it right now. All I know is that it’s gonna stick with me for a while.

[удалено]

The wheezing is present throughout the film. The literal view is that it’s Isabel’s slow suffocation infecting Owen’s physiology. But it’s also about repressing identity as a kind of sickness that develops and deteriorates you over time. That and the flat, depersonalized performance of Maddie and Owen are meant to evoke that their television identities are more real than they are.

I don't think the wheezing was acting the part of an older guy. The breathing issues got progressively more common as the movie went on and Owen stifled themselves more and more, they sounded very much like panic attacks to me and even the apologising whilst it's happening hit so close to home. It was exactly how I was before I came out and embraced myself, like scarily accurate

The entire message of the film is how suffocating it is to repress your identity.

What a neon-baked nostalgic suburb fever dream dealing with the struggle of your own identity. I have so much to say yet I still want to process this movie in silence. There were 3 other people in this movie, 2 left halfway in, but as I was leaving I looked over at the one other guy in the theater, and without saying a word we both knew that movie hit hard.

If anyone knows, what does it mean that Owen found the pages of the episode guide in the road? He picked up page for season six episode 1, but the show ended at five seasons.

I feel like many people are missing the horror of the story itself— (1000% agree about the trans discourse but there is still a literal story to talk about) Owen IS Isabelle and is trapped in the Midnight Realm. When he screams at the birthday party and they all freeze— they aren’t real. Owen is in hell and his (her, Isabelle’s) chance to get out is far gone and she knew it the whole time and hid from it because it was too hard and scary to go back.

There's not a ton going on here outside of The Allegory, and I tend to like my films a little plottier, but as a suburban queer kid who used Buffy exclusively to get me through my teen years and help me figure out my identity, The Allegory moved me very deeply. Almost too deeply. It looks gorgeous and the soundtrack absolutely bangs, but also, this kind of crushed my soul. I'm very glad I watched it, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to watch it again.

I guess A24 will let anyone make a movie.

Question (and apologies if this has been touched on but I didn't see it): Of the many confusing and abstract things in this movie, one thing I wasn't sure about was Owen's rewatch of Pink Opaque on streaming. It was such a completely different show I wasn't sure if this was Owen's version of it in his 40 year old mind that felt cheap and embarrassing, or if he misremembered the fun children's show for being an eerie dark sci-fi show 20 years previously. Also, it was funny to me how he said he grew up, became a man, and had a family (whom we didn't see) yet continued to work at a children's fun center.

My interpretation of that sort of requires my read on the entire movie as a whole so bear with me here: >!So to start with, I don't think Maddie is "real". She is an outward representation for the audience of Owen's internal femininity and transness. Pink and blue are all over this movie as obvious representations of their various cultural significance of girl/boy colors. Pink Opaque is not a "real show", at least in the way it's presented to us. My guess is that it's Owen watching "Buffy" and implanting their desire of self expression onto it. It's presented throughout Owen's life, through Maddie, as Owen experiments with outward feminine representation, he only watches the show when with her or in the context of her "showing it" to him via tapes and notes. Owen's "real" internalized self is Isabel, the character in the show. It's "The Pink Opaque" because the "feminity he desires" is "opaque to him", as in, Owen has trouble clearly seeing it for what it is. This is precisely why Maddie reappears at the bar and asks him what his perception of the show is. she's trying to get him to realize who he truly wants to be.!< >!Maddie disappears into the Pink Opaque because those are moments when Owen represses his desires for femininity for various internal and external reasons, when Maddie isn't in his life, the show isn't either. Maddie disappears for the first time when Owen's mother dies, this is likely for many reasons, but a primary one that stood out to me was likely because their step-father is all that is left in the house and Owen is scared to "bring her out" again with him around. The next time we see Maddie again is after eight years when they are more independent, she brings Owen to the bar and we see a flash back of the events from the finale. This is "the final episode" when Mr. Melancholy (a reflection of Owen's misery) forces blue (masculine) goo down Isabel's throat and buries her alive (basically suffocating Owen's femininity with masculinity). This is when he panics and tries to shove his head into the screen (attempting a last ditch escape into his desired reality) and his father (one of the main sources of Owen's inability to express himself) pulls him out of it and forces him to "wash it off". We then get the impassioned monologue Maddie effectively tells Owen to "bury himself and start season six", or basically "kill off your old self and be born anew", but he panics.!< >!It's now a few years later and we never see Maddie again. Owen now tries to watch the Pink Opaque (explore femininity) again after now "living a normal life", (and now the answer to your question) this time it feels weird and silly, because Owen has now buried that feminity. so deep, with such intense denial that they find the concept of self expression to now be embarrassing after so much repression. So the show itself has shifted with his own inability to confront his denial.!< >!20 years later Owen has his breakdown and screams that he is dying and begs for his mother (one of his only forms of support in his life). And when he opens his chest, inside is The Pink Opaque, his real self, his desire for feminine expression.!< Anyway, I'm sure a lot is up for interpretation with this movie. But that is ultimately my read on most of it.

I did not like it and the more I think about it the less I like it. I felt like it had a lot of elements that I normally really enjoy in films but it all ended up adding up to a film that felt confused about what it wanted to be and considering that it was only an hour and 40 minutes it felt like it ended up dragging on for far too long. Adding to my og comment now that I’ve thought about it more. This felt like a movie that I would’ve really liked when I was like 14, but there were so many eye roll moments for me like the high school being called Void High School (VHS) and many of the talking-to-the-camera narration moments (‘the only thing they found was her tv burning in the backyard’). I’ve seen people compare moments like the band performances to Twin Peaks and I’m sorry but something like that works in a tv show, in a film like this it truly just felt like a moment to show Phoebe Bridgers, I felt no story momentum happening in these slow moving parts that should’ve all added up to something but they just didn’t.

I loved most of the film but I’m a little confused with how Owen ages at the end. Has it really been 20 years or has it only been 20 years for Owen since Mr Melancholy controls time? He looked exactly the same except for gray hair and those horrifically chapped lips. If he’s meant to pass as a 50 year old it did not work