Phoebe Bridgers is making the move from rock star to movie star in the most Phoebe Bridgers way possible: the LA musician will have her big screen debut in an A24 horror that looks like it will be very, very gay. The film’s director Jane Schoenbrun is best known for We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a brilliant, unsettling feature that centres on a lonely teenager participating in a creepy, body-changing online challenge. As i-D contributor Sam Moore writes, the film “refuses to offer a single narrative – of queerness, transitioning, coming out – but these themes are always rumbling beneath the surface.”
The filmmaker has spoken before about how her journey to filmmaking seemed to parallel her coming out as trans. “I kept finding that every screenplay I wrote was about trans shit,” Jane says. “This was before I knew I was trans, which is ridiculous. The warning signs that the universe sends you are so loud, or that your subconscious sends you.”
So what’s this spooky new film about then? And who else has made the cut into this cool, wild, queer cast? Why are they all indie musicians? The answers to these questions, and more, are just a scroll away – here’s everything we know about I Saw the TV Glow.
What’s the plot of I Saw the TV Glow?
We don’t know much, just that the new movie will follow a pair of teen outcasts who bond over a “scary television show” they share a love for. When the show is mysteriously cancelled, “the boundary between TV and reality begins to blur.”
Who else is in the cast? And what will Phoebe’s role be?
The cast includes a number of indie music heavy hitters – Snail Mail’s Lindsay Jordan, Limp Bizkit musician and director Fred Durst, King Woman, and Haley Dahl’s Sloppy Jane – but Phoebe will be the one fronting the band. Could all this have something to do with A24’s new music imprint? The one that just gave us “Hot Girl”, the new Charli XCX track? Possibly.
The two main ‘outcast’ roles have gone to Justice Smith (The Get Down, also HBO’s Genera+ion, RIP) and Brigette Lundy-Paine, best known for her performance in Atypical. I Saw the TV Glow will also feature Helena Howard (Madeline’s Madeline), Danielle Deadwyler (Station Eleven), plus Amber Benson, Ian Foreman, Michael Maronna, Conner O’Malley, Emma Portner, and Danny Tamberelli.
When is the release date?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project is now in post-production, with filming having wrapped a week ago. A 2023 premiere at Sundance (where World’s Fair first showed) or perhaps SXSW is not out of the question, but only time and an official announcement will tell for sure.
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