It makes sense with this page's themeing that the first movie I wanna yap about is I saw the TV Glow, yeah? Warning this is going to be LONG
Non-spoiling reccomendation:
I Saw the Tv Glow is a fantastic movie that permeated my brain for days after I watched it. My dumbass watched it in between classes, and then I completely zoned out my bio lecture following the movie because I was too busy recovering. This movie is a absolute experience with it's incredible style, it's beautiful soundtrack (some songs are on my playlist), the great acting performances, and it's overall surreal feeling.
You definitely need to ability to lean into artistic elements, as the movie's premise (which I will not spoil) is actually way more insane than it seems in the first portion of the movie, so much so that even I (who enjoys artsy films like I'm Thinking of Ending Things) was a bit thrown off by the reveal, but because I thought the rest of the movie had been done so well I was willing to give it some leeway, and I'm glad I did because this movie is so much more than it's plot summary.
And yes, as you may already known even if you haven't seen it, this is a queer horror story, with themes of the pain of change vs. the slow death of stagnation adapted around the transgender experience. And it is a horrifying movie, do not watch this shit if you're in a more sensitive mood.
This is definitely not a general audience movie, hell I know a lot of people who just... don't get it. But the movie isn't made for everyone. But if you get it, it's actually a sucker punch right in the gut, ya know?
! NOTHING BUT SPOILERS HEREAFTER. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, THIS MOVIE IS GREAT, DO NOT DO THIS INJUSTICE TO YOURSELF !
I actually rewatched the movie recently (I saw it first like, a year-ish ago) just so I could write this page in more detail. The following is basically just an expansion of a bunch of things I wrote down on the rewatch because they stuck out to me. I'm not an essayist, don't expect me to string together some incredible expansion on the narrative here, this is basically me just talking like I would to a friend after seeing it (which is to say, disjointed).
Firstly, I love the contrasting and colorful lighting that bathes literally the whole film. I'm so sick of movies that what to look REALISTIC and GRITTY so they just make everything fucking gray bro. Do big movie execs know you're allowed to color correct? You allowed to have non-white lightning? Harsh shadows are okay??? I'm looking at you Wicked...who the fuck grays out the Land of Oz????? Anyway...outside of appreciating the aesthetic (which is awesome btw), it makes the scenes feel more surreal, making it a great stylistic choice for a narrative where the world's legitamtcy is thrown into question. Just about everything in this movie lends heavy into surrealism for obvious reasons, and the lightning throughout contributes a lot. Plus, given how insane the plot of the story is on paper without subtext, it feels appropriate for it to have a flashy style with it's cinematography and lighting as well. I'm not enough of a camera nut to say too much more on the cinemtogrpahy, other than it looks fantasitic imao. I'll mention a shot or two further into this.
Secondly, the soundtrack???? THE SOUNDTRACK????? I knew right when Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl that the sountrack was going to go crazy the whole movie. The whole thing is made perfectly for the style of the movie, and it also just hits?? I listened to the entire soundtrack album, ough. Athems and Another Season are both on my playlist, and frankly if I relistened I'd probably add more. Because I didn't have a TV in my dorm when I watched this movie, I streamed it from my computer with my headphones on so I didn't disturb my roommate, and ooooooohh it's great with headphones.
Time to talk about individual scenes. (Note: I'm going to be calling Owen he/him throughout this review even though literally the whole plot revolves around the fact he's a trans woman since he never actually transition(/buried himself alive in a coffin), and I'll be calling Maddie/Tara whatever name she was using at that point of the story.)
On the rewatch, I really enjoyed the opener, which sees kid Owen sitting in front of the tv, pink glow lit across his face, watching a episode of The Pink Opaque that seems to be focused on Isabel and those bathroom monsters. It focuses on Owens face before letting an echo-y line Isabel says play: "it can't hurt you if you don't think about it." before transitioning to the gymnasium scene. In retrospect, this really does set-up the whole plot perfectly in a way that doesn't necessarily give anything away while setting the tone, and immediately establishing Owen/Isabel's flaw that drives the friction of the movie.
I have to mention the dialogue writing between Owen and Maddie in this movie. It's so painful while being so familiar (it's really well done). Their conversations are so stunted and awkward, even after they establish a connection, that I cannot help but be reminded of being a lonely, poorly-socialized (and unbeknownst to me, queer) weird kid when I was younger, trying to make friends with other lonely weird kids over our shared (often made fun of) media interests. And the way Maddie sorta lightens up and gets less defensive when she realises Owen also has a interest in the Pink Opaque, and tries to make him feel better by sharing her book when she realizes she upset him? Oh my god... I'm back in the fucking building again (elementary school)
I also really like the clips of the Pink Opaque that get played for us. Love the juxtaposition of the kinda goofy dialogue against the actually really well done and kinda scary ice cream man costume (actually a lot of horror designs are insane, the inital shot of Mr Melachony where he's this weird, twitching face over the moon? Actually a little unnerving). And then the transition sequence from Isabel walking into the sunlight and twirling around in it moving on to Owen walking... I wonder what this could possibly mean....
And Maddie's line, that she says on the stairway after Owen is going to sleep at her house so he could watch the show with her despite his bedtime? "Sometimes the Pink Opaque feels more real than real life?" It's easy to read that line as just a overdramatic kid being angsty or whatever, but dude, don't things feel like that sometimes?? Maddie (and Owen) both clearly have hard home lives, and obviously both are seriously repressed, and (ignoring the fact in plot that the Pink Opaque actually IS more real than this life) seeing a show with characters who are shamelessly the way you really want to be? That you feel you are inside if you were just allowed to be? Powerful and beautiful and themselves? Of course the silly TV show characters feel more real, when your own life is nothing more than a dull performance of what people think you should be like. And the later scene where Maddie is bawling her eyes out while watching Tara onscreen? ioughgiih longing longing longing longing
I also really love the hallway scene that shows Maddie has been leaving tapes of the episodes and includes her scribbles and doodles commenting on the show. I don't have anything deep to say about it I just really like the music and the longshot of Owen walking against the drawings over the screen. Maybe to some extent, this is supposed to be a reflection of Tara and Isabels psychic bond in Owen and Maddie? Like how even though they never seem to see eachother, they still help and communicate to each other, only in this world through their shared love of the show?
Again nothing super deep to say, but I also love that one sequence where Owen's parents come in while he's watching one of the Pink Opaque tapes, his face lit by light of the screen, before he quickly pulls the tape out while leaving the tv on, then the camera switches to be behind him, with the silhouette of his head framed by the static of the screen. It's a good sequence.
While, as you can see from my absolute yappage (this will not happen to every movie I talk about), I liked the movie so far; but the scene that really drew my full attention and mind to the movie was the rafters. When Maddie prods Owen on whether he likes boys or girls, he answers noncommital, joking that he likes tv shows (honestly real). But then he follows up, "when i think about that stuff, it feels like someone took a shovel and dug out all my insides. And I know there's nothing in there, but I'm still too nervous to open myself up and check...I know there's something wrong with me, my parent's know it too even if they don't say anything. Do you ever feel like that?" Me quoting here doesn't do it justice with the performance Owen's actor gives. Dude. Dude. I'm not going to hyperanalysis this here, just watch it.
Anyways, I also really like how much more surreal the environment around Owen becomes after the 8 year time skip. Dissociation, denial, isolation, I get it I get it, it's a great way to try and get the audience to feel it rather than just explain to them hey guys Owen's lonely and in denial. And frankly I also just think it is stylistically cool imao. That prolonged shot where Owen it like in the bottom 3rd of the screen while getting produce in this really dreary store where there's literally NOONE else??? Actually so good. And while I was a little thrown off on the first watch, I kinda apprericate Maddie/Tara's weird ass pose when she reunites with Owen. She definitely feels out of place...
Firstly, love the drag club, great music! As I mentioned in the first section of this rant, I was a little weirded out by the turn of the reveal in this scene, where Tara implies her and Owen are the TV show characters for real and that the life we've been watching is actually the false reality. It's just such a insane, almost cartoony plot twist in a otherwise serious movie that I was not expecting it at all, but given that the final Pink Opaque episode (which was actually kinda horrifying btw) and the following freakout (also horrifying) were so well done, I was willing to not immeditately write the movie off and hold a little faith, and holy moly was that the right call. I warmed up to the concept during Tara's following monoloque, which I'll get to. I also like the meta-awareness of Tara asking if Owen feel's like he's been narrating and watching his whole life rather than living it, since he's quite literally been turning to the camera and narrating some sections (especially events that don't include Maddie/Tara or the Pink Opaque; perhaps drawing on that "the Pink Opaque feels more real than real life" comment again).
While I thought it was much less scary on the second watch, I remember being genuinely unnerved by the final Pink Opaque episode, especially with Isabel's distorted screaming and the performance by the Mr Melancholy. The line delivery of "you wont even remember you're dying" is eerie dude.
Tara's monologue in the gymnasium dude? ohhhh my god. How she describes how years just slip past her over and over. "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." This whole thing and especially this line rotated in my brain for so long after and sometimes still. This isn't how life is supposed to feel. And the brutality of how she escaped? How she had to bury herself alive, claw at the coffin, scream for help, piss and shit buried alive just so she could come out in the end, find her heart? Change is not easy! It does not feel good in the moment! It's actually so much more painful than feeling numb and stagnant! It makes you want to slam your head against a wall and hide away so your never seen again and scream until your throat burns! When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, first the caterpillar disintegrates in it's cocoon, it's body and organs break down, it digests itself until it's little more than sludge before it's parts are put back together into a different form. And after, when Owen denys everything, and Tara replies "and I haven't told you anything tonight you don't already know."? I don't even have anything more to say. Jesus christ.
And that's part of it too! If you take the story completely face-value, Tara sounds INSANE. She is telling Owen that they are both actually the main characters from that TV show they love and they need to throw this all away so they go fight the big bad of that show, and to do that they both need to BURY THEMSELVES ALIVE. It so improbable that surely any reasonable wouldn't believe her, would think she's just out of her mind and maybe on something hard, but she's RIGHT... I mean, uprooting your whole life, destroying relationships, putting yourself in danger from people who would hurt you for it, just to change some aspect of your indentity? People tell you it's crazy, don't they? But they don't get it, or if they do they don't want to say it, because you're suffocating you're dying you can't stay here
I also made a note on Owen's line "this isn't the midnight realm Maddie it's just the suburbs." Not because I have another paragraph to say here just, isn't that downplay familiar? They live in the suburbs, the American dream! It's supposed to what everyone wants, the ideal normal, safe and normal safe and normal.
After Owen runs away from Tara, refusing to bury himself, we get a really long narration from him about the rest of his life for 20 years. The time skips get longer and longer throughout the movie. "what if I really was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Someone buried alive and suffocating to death...[but] that's just fantasy. Kids stuff" and the iconic image of "there is still time" written in chalk on the road Owen walks on. This movie makes me want to bite down on something hard, dude. I'm not going to write another paragraph, you get the idea.
I also find his narration of "I even got a family of my own. I love them more than anything" interesting. We never get to see this family or hear anything more than this single line about them, narrating in the same monotone he's had and the same hollow expression he wears the whole show. This is the only line. A comment on him trying to ground himself in heteronormativity I suppose. Especially with that line in there about him needing to become a man. Normal and safe normal and safe normal and safe. Also great image of him putting out the campfire flame that's been flashing throughout the movie. I love my visual symbolisms and non-linear narratives. On that note I also really like how, when he rewatches the Pink Opaque and it becomes some weird shitter version that he's embarrased by, there's this ambience of him wheezing in the background, ya know, like he's suffocating (the whole thing with him having a inhaler and some respiratory issue that worsens through the movie is not subtle in hindset imao).
I don't need to say anything about the Birthday Party scene. Oh my god. Actual made me feel cold and sick when I first watched it. The way everyone is just turned away and stiff like corpses while he's screaming? God... And of course, the "you are dying" money machine is both iconic and again horrifying in context.
This is not my original thought I actually saw a post on this on Tumblr, but they pointed out that Owen's freakout at the end and what Tara describes as a turning out during her running away (before she buried herself) kinda parallel each other, and with that in mind and the scene where Owen finally gather's the courage to look inside himself (literally in this case), I will refuse to read the ending as anything but hopeful. This is still time.
Anways, I think there's a very low chance anyone else read this far, but if you did, hi!!! If you couldn't tell I like this movie :3 . I really like how the themes of change v. stagnation were done here. You can bury current self, scream and cry and sing and break your fingers pounding on the coffin, but emerge and find your heart; or you can rot away in a haze while time flies by you.
Non-spoiling reccomendation:
I Saw the Tv Glow is a fantastic movie that permeated my brain for days after I watched it. My dumbass watched it in between classes, and then I completely zoned out my bio lecture following the movie because I was too busy recovering. This movie is a absolute experience with it's incredible style, it's beautiful soundtrack (some songs are on my playlist), the great acting performances, and it's overall surreal feeling.
You definitely need to ability to lean into artistic elements, as the movie's premise (which I will not spoil) is actually way more insane than it seems in the first portion of the movie, so much so that even I (who enjoys artsy films like I'm Thinking of Ending Things) was a bit thrown off by the reveal, but because I thought the rest of the movie had been done so well I was willing to give it some leeway, and I'm glad I did because this movie is so much more than it's plot summary.
And yes, as you may already known even if you haven't seen it, this is a queer horror story, with themes of the pain of change vs. the slow death of stagnation adapted around the transgender experience. And it is a horrifying movie, do not watch this shit if you're in a more sensitive mood.
This is definitely not a general audience movie, hell I know a lot of people who just... don't get it. But the movie isn't made for everyone. But if you get it, it's actually a sucker punch right in the gut, ya know?
! NOTHING BUT SPOILERS HEREAFTER. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, THIS MOVIE IS GREAT, DO NOT DO THIS INJUSTICE TO YOURSELF !
I actually rewatched the movie recently (I saw it first like, a year-ish ago) just so I could write this page in more detail. The following is basically just an expansion of a bunch of things I wrote down on the rewatch because they stuck out to me. I'm not an essayist, don't expect me to string together some incredible expansion on the narrative here, this is basically me just talking like I would to a friend after seeing it (which is to say, disjointed).
Firstly, I love the contrasting and colorful lighting that bathes literally the whole film. I'm so sick of movies that what to look REALISTIC and GRITTY so they just make everything fucking gray bro. Do big movie execs know you're allowed to color correct? You allowed to have non-white lightning? Harsh shadows are okay??? I'm looking at you Wicked...who the fuck grays out the Land of Oz????? Anyway...outside of appreciating the aesthetic (which is awesome btw), it makes the scenes feel more surreal, making it a great stylistic choice for a narrative where the world's legitamtcy is thrown into question. Just about everything in this movie lends heavy into surrealism for obvious reasons, and the lightning throughout contributes a lot. Plus, given how insane the plot of the story is on paper without subtext, it feels appropriate for it to have a flashy style with it's cinematography and lighting as well. I'm not enough of a camera nut to say too much more on the cinemtogrpahy, other than it looks fantasitic imao. I'll mention a shot or two further into this.
Secondly, the soundtrack???? THE SOUNDTRACK????? I knew right when Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl that the sountrack was going to go crazy the whole movie. The whole thing is made perfectly for the style of the movie, and it also just hits?? I listened to the entire soundtrack album, ough. Athems and Another Season are both on my playlist, and frankly if I relistened I'd probably add more. Because I didn't have a TV in my dorm when I watched this movie, I streamed it from my computer with my headphones on so I didn't disturb my roommate, and ooooooohh it's great with headphones.
Time to talk about individual scenes. (Note: I'm going to be calling Owen he/him throughout this review even though literally the whole plot revolves around the fact he's a trans woman since he never actually transition(/buried himself alive in a coffin), and I'll be calling Maddie/Tara whatever name she was using at that point of the story.)
On the rewatch, I really enjoyed the opener, which sees kid Owen sitting in front of the tv, pink glow lit across his face, watching a episode of The Pink Opaque that seems to be focused on Isabel and those bathroom monsters. It focuses on Owens face before letting an echo-y line Isabel says play: "it can't hurt you if you don't think about it." before transitioning to the gymnasium scene. In retrospect, this really does set-up the whole plot perfectly in a way that doesn't necessarily give anything away while setting the tone, and immediately establishing Owen/Isabel's flaw that drives the friction of the movie.
I have to mention the dialogue writing between Owen and Maddie in this movie. It's so painful while being so familiar (it's really well done). Their conversations are so stunted and awkward, even after they establish a connection, that I cannot help but be reminded of being a lonely, poorly-socialized (and unbeknownst to me, queer) weird kid when I was younger, trying to make friends with other lonely weird kids over our shared (often made fun of) media interests. And the way Maddie sorta lightens up and gets less defensive when she realises Owen also has a interest in the Pink Opaque, and tries to make him feel better by sharing her book when she realizes she upset him? Oh my god... I'm back in the fucking building again (elementary school)
I also really like the clips of the Pink Opaque that get played for us. Love the juxtaposition of the kinda goofy dialogue against the actually really well done and kinda scary ice cream man costume (actually a lot of horror designs are insane, the inital shot of Mr Melachony where he's this weird, twitching face over the moon? Actually a little unnerving). And then the transition sequence from Isabel walking into the sunlight and twirling around in it moving on to Owen walking... I wonder what this could possibly mean....
And Maddie's line, that she says on the stairway after Owen is going to sleep at her house so he could watch the show with her despite his bedtime? "Sometimes the Pink Opaque feels more real than real life?" It's easy to read that line as just a overdramatic kid being angsty or whatever, but dude, don't things feel like that sometimes?? Maddie (and Owen) both clearly have hard home lives, and obviously both are seriously repressed, and (ignoring the fact in plot that the Pink Opaque actually IS more real than this life) seeing a show with characters who are shamelessly the way you really want to be? That you feel you are inside if you were just allowed to be? Powerful and beautiful and themselves? Of course the silly TV show characters feel more real, when your own life is nothing more than a dull performance of what people think you should be like. And the later scene where Maddie is bawling her eyes out while watching Tara onscreen? ioughgiih longing longing longing longing
I also really love the hallway scene that shows Maddie has been leaving tapes of the episodes and includes her scribbles and doodles commenting on the show. I don't have anything deep to say about it I just really like the music and the longshot of Owen walking against the drawings over the screen. Maybe to some extent, this is supposed to be a reflection of Tara and Isabels psychic bond in Owen and Maddie? Like how even though they never seem to see eachother, they still help and communicate to each other, only in this world through their shared love of the show?
Again nothing super deep to say, but I also love that one sequence where Owen's parents come in while he's watching one of the Pink Opaque tapes, his face lit by light of the screen, before he quickly pulls the tape out while leaving the tv on, then the camera switches to be behind him, with the silhouette of his head framed by the static of the screen. It's a good sequence.
While, as you can see from my absolute yappage (this will not happen to every movie I talk about), I liked the movie so far; but the scene that really drew my full attention and mind to the movie was the rafters. When Maddie prods Owen on whether he likes boys or girls, he answers noncommital, joking that he likes tv shows (honestly real). But then he follows up, "when i think about that stuff, it feels like someone took a shovel and dug out all my insides. And I know there's nothing in there, but I'm still too nervous to open myself up and check...I know there's something wrong with me, my parent's know it too even if they don't say anything. Do you ever feel like that?" Me quoting here doesn't do it justice with the performance Owen's actor gives. Dude. Dude. I'm not going to hyperanalysis this here, just watch it.
Anyways, I also really like how much more surreal the environment around Owen becomes after the 8 year time skip. Dissociation, denial, isolation, I get it I get it, it's a great way to try and get the audience to feel it rather than just explain to them hey guys Owen's lonely and in denial. And frankly I also just think it is stylistically cool imao. That prolonged shot where Owen it like in the bottom 3rd of the screen while getting produce in this really dreary store where there's literally NOONE else??? Actually so good. And while I was a little thrown off on the first watch, I kinda apprericate Maddie/Tara's weird ass pose when she reunites with Owen. She definitely feels out of place...
Firstly, love the drag club, great music! As I mentioned in the first section of this rant, I was a little weirded out by the turn of the reveal in this scene, where Tara implies her and Owen are the TV show characters for real and that the life we've been watching is actually the false reality. It's just such a insane, almost cartoony plot twist in a otherwise serious movie that I was not expecting it at all, but given that the final Pink Opaque episode (which was actually kinda horrifying btw) and the following freakout (also horrifying) were so well done, I was willing to not immeditately write the movie off and hold a little faith, and holy moly was that the right call. I warmed up to the concept during Tara's following monoloque, which I'll get to. I also like the meta-awareness of Tara asking if Owen feel's like he's been narrating and watching his whole life rather than living it, since he's quite literally been turning to the camera and narrating some sections (especially events that don't include Maddie/Tara or the Pink Opaque; perhaps drawing on that "the Pink Opaque feels more real than real life" comment again).
While I thought it was much less scary on the second watch, I remember being genuinely unnerved by the final Pink Opaque episode, especially with Isabel's distorted screaming and the performance by the Mr Melancholy. The line delivery of "you wont even remember you're dying" is eerie dude.
Tara's monologue in the gymnasium dude? ohhhh my god. How she describes how years just slip past her over and over. "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." "This isn't how life is supposed to feel." This whole thing and especially this line rotated in my brain for so long after and sometimes still. This isn't how life is supposed to feel. And the brutality of how she escaped? How she had to bury herself alive, claw at the coffin, scream for help, piss and shit buried alive just so she could come out in the end, find her heart? Change is not easy! It does not feel good in the moment! It's actually so much more painful than feeling numb and stagnant! It makes you want to slam your head against a wall and hide away so your never seen again and scream until your throat burns! When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, first the caterpillar disintegrates in it's cocoon, it's body and organs break down, it digests itself until it's little more than sludge before it's parts are put back together into a different form. And after, when Owen denys everything, and Tara replies "and I haven't told you anything tonight you don't already know."? I don't even have anything more to say. Jesus christ.
And that's part of it too! If you take the story completely face-value, Tara sounds INSANE. She is telling Owen that they are both actually the main characters from that TV show they love and they need to throw this all away so they go fight the big bad of that show, and to do that they both need to BURY THEMSELVES ALIVE. It so improbable that surely any reasonable wouldn't believe her, would think she's just out of her mind and maybe on something hard, but she's RIGHT... I mean, uprooting your whole life, destroying relationships, putting yourself in danger from people who would hurt you for it, just to change some aspect of your indentity? People tell you it's crazy, don't they? But they don't get it, or if they do they don't want to say it, because you're suffocating you're dying you can't stay here
I also made a note on Owen's line "this isn't the midnight realm Maddie it's just the suburbs." Not because I have another paragraph to say here just, isn't that downplay familiar? They live in the suburbs, the American dream! It's supposed to what everyone wants, the ideal normal, safe and normal safe and normal.
After Owen runs away from Tara, refusing to bury himself, we get a really long narration from him about the rest of his life for 20 years. The time skips get longer and longer throughout the movie. "what if I really was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Someone buried alive and suffocating to death...[but] that's just fantasy. Kids stuff" and the iconic image of "there is still time" written in chalk on the road Owen walks on. This movie makes me want to bite down on something hard, dude. I'm not going to write another paragraph, you get the idea.
I also find his narration of "I even got a family of my own. I love them more than anything" interesting. We never get to see this family or hear anything more than this single line about them, narrating in the same monotone he's had and the same hollow expression he wears the whole show. This is the only line. A comment on him trying to ground himself in heteronormativity I suppose. Especially with that line in there about him needing to become a man. Normal and safe normal and safe normal and safe. Also great image of him putting out the campfire flame that's been flashing throughout the movie. I love my visual symbolisms and non-linear narratives. On that note I also really like how, when he rewatches the Pink Opaque and it becomes some weird shitter version that he's embarrased by, there's this ambience of him wheezing in the background, ya know, like he's suffocating (the whole thing with him having a inhaler and some respiratory issue that worsens through the movie is not subtle in hindset imao).
I don't need to say anything about the Birthday Party scene. Oh my god. Actual made me feel cold and sick when I first watched it. The way everyone is just turned away and stiff like corpses while he's screaming? God... And of course, the "you are dying" money machine is both iconic and again horrifying in context.
This is not my original thought I actually saw a post on this on Tumblr, but they pointed out that Owen's freakout at the end and what Tara describes as a turning out during her running away (before she buried herself) kinda parallel each other, and with that in mind and the scene where Owen finally gather's the courage to look inside himself (literally in this case), I will refuse to read the ending as anything but hopeful. This is still time.
Anways, I think there's a very low chance anyone else read this far, but if you did, hi!!! If you couldn't tell I like this movie :3 . I really like how the themes of change v. stagnation were done here. You can bury current self, scream and cry and sing and break your fingers pounding on the coffin, but emerge and find your heart; or you can rot away in a haze while time flies by you.
