A Film Festival Opening Made for a TV Lover

It’s hardly unusual for TV journalists to spend time at the movies, but never has a weekend of festival programming seemed so tailor-made for us. The Chicago Critics Film Festival kicked off its 11th edition with a lineup that was fairly bursting with small-screen talent and resonance.

Opening night on May 3 saw the Chicago premiere of Sing Sing, which stars Colman Domingo, who had already reinvigorated The Walking Dead franchise before winning an Emmy for his role in Euphoria. Elsewhere, his co-star Hunter Schafer, one of Euphoria’s many breakouts, gave a gorgeously wounded performance in Cuckoo, a new horror-thriller from Tilman Singer.

I won’t pretend that was the goal of the Chicago Film Critics Association, which is generally just a bit more focused on granting Chicagoans access to great movies they might not otherwise get to see. But the feeling that TV was taking over the festival really began to coalesce on Saturday with the arrival of Babes, a ribald and poignant comedy starring Broad City co-creator Ilana Glazer and Survival of the Thickest co-creator Michelle Buteau.

Glazer co-wrote the film with Josh Rabinowitz, who’s worked on The Jerrod Carmichael Show, and Ramy, but it’s their previous collaboration on Broad City that really shines through. Babes is raunch with heart — it tells the story of lifelong friends who realize they may have different definitions, or at least expectations, of “found family.” Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Buteau), a pair of millennial New Yorkers, are trying to figure out how to keep living their lives in tandem, even as they continue to move in different directions. Despite their undeniable intimacy — at one point, Eden does a quick check of Dawn’s crotch to verify that her water’s broken — the two women are increasingly out of touch with each other. Recognizing that fact is both the cause and solution to their problems.

Glazer is perhaps best known for parsing the particularities of friendship alongside Abbi Jacobson — who went on to make A League of Their Own, another wonderful show about the bonds between women — so her insights in Babes are no surprise. But her chemistry with Buteau rivals her interplay with Jacobson; the friendship between their characters immediately feels lived-in and enviable. The film’s opening scene is almost in medias res, which gives the feeling of catching an episode of a show you’ve never seen before, but that’s likely to become an obsession.

As if that weren’t enough, TV auteur Pamela Adlon, the real visionary behind the incandescent dramedy Better Things, makes her feature directorial debut with Babes. Glazer couldn’t have asked for a better partner here; Adlon’s always had a knack for translating the female experience for the screen. In Better Things, what she once called a “coming-of-middle-age comedy,” the multihyphenate captured the different ways that our bodies can inspire awe. She also showed how that sense of awe can quickly turn to one of horror (come to think of it, that kind of sums up giving birth). What Adlon did to demystify menopause on Better Things, she helps Glazer to explore about pregnancy in Babes.

May 4 also saw a block of restored Max Fleischer cartoons, but what solidified this festival weekend as one for TV lovers was the Chicago premiere of I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun’s achingly beautiful follow-up to their deeply unnerving 2021 film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. It is also stacked with TV talent and nods: Generation’s Justice Smith and Atypical’s Brigette Lundy-Paine play the two teens who bond over The Pink Opaque, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like show (unsurprisingly, Schoenbrun was obsessed Buffy in their own adolescence).

Amber Benson — Tara Maclay herself — has a small role, along with Conner O’Malley, a former Late Night With Seth Meyers writer who’s also appeared on I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, Broad City, Joe Pera Talks With You, and Detroiters. (He’s also married to Saturday Night Live and Shrill alum Aidy Bryant. Whew.)

But TV actors making their way to film is common; it’s not what really ties together our theme here. No, I Saw the TV Glow captures what it’s like to be a devoted fan of a cult TV show, any cult TV show. To live with one for years, during which you learn to identify its strengths and flaws, and embrace them both. To find yourself in its characters, and to find others who share your love. To feel seen by the TV glow.

A singular work of arthouse horror, I Saw the TV Glow is still very much open to interpretation. Schoenbrun has talked candidly about its place in their story of transition, while also discussing how the film is “interested in the sadness, loneliness or perhaps even sinister nature of emotionally investing so deeply in fandom.” Primetimer contributors have offered equally compelling readings of the movie; in a feature on the 2024 Sundance Festival, where the movie premiered, Juan Barquin views I Saw the TV Glow as a potential “metaphor for dysphoria.” In her review of the movie, Katie Rife acknowledges other interpretations while also noting the pangs it might elicit in “anyone who woke up one day and realized that somehow they’ve gotten old.” (Okay, I related to this one, too.)

Getting to come back over multiple days and essentially pick up where I left off helped drive home the feeling that this experience was designed with TV viewers in mind. Unlike the most entitled of fans, I’d never presume that was the case. It's best to leave that open to interpretation, too.

Danette Chavez is the Editor-in-Chief of Primetimer and its biggest fan of puns.