(L-R) Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine Credit: Courtesy of A24.
I Saw the TV Glow is certainly a nightmare. Though in some respects it stabs at a particular organ, the broad stroke of its aim is a cut across the jugular. Alongside a narrative driven by emotion is an often visually compelling unsettling dream. Even its weakest parts are likely to make audience members speculate about various meanings and implications. However, it seems strange to call it a horror movie since I Saw the TV Glow induces more sadness than scares. Although, that’s the kind of debate that helps cult movies endure.
The story centers on Owen (Justice Smith). Lost in suburbia, the seventh grader encounters a ninth grader named Maddy (Bridgette Ludy-Paine). The two bond over an increasing obsession with a late-night show called The Pink Opaque. This supernatural program for young adults soon cracks their sense of reality, and as the years go by, terrifying implications about what the show is really about affect the young fans in a way that is either freeing or fracturing their minds.
The story centers on Owen (Justice Smith). Lost in suburbia, the seventh grader encounters a ninth grader named Maddy (Bridgette Ludy-Paine). The two bond over an increasing obsession with a late-night show called The Pink Opaque. This supernatural program for young adults soon cracks their sense of reality, and as the years go by, terrifying implications about what the show is really about affect the young fans in a way that is either freeing or fracturing their minds.
Ice cream truck scene from I Saw the TV glow. Credit: Courtesy of A24
Part of the appeal watching I Saw the TV Glow is seeing where that mystery leads. As Owen and Maddy go deeper down the rabbit hole that is The Pink Opaque, they essentially end up exploring themselves. In that respect, the film says a lot about the pop culture people choose to consume. That in turn allows the narrative to also touch on nostalgia --- the way it warps things positively until the truth triggers crushing disappointment.
There’s a constant sense that nothing is how it’s remembered which makes a lot of the narrative seemingly unreliable. I Saw the TV Glow unfolds as a confessional, breaking the fourth wall as it hopscotches through time. Sometimes this helps summarize what’s happened offscreen in the years elapsed, but too often, it amounts to dumping information in the audience’s lap. Still, it begs the question whether the film depicts events as they occurred or as they’re remembered, tinted by time and madness.
I Saw the TV Glow is an interesting example of cinematic stream of consciousness. There is an astonishingly superb scene featuring Owen walking down a high school hallway. Words and images appear on screen like doodles in a notebook. All at once the movie coherently conveys how alone Owen is at school, while simultaneously feeding intriguing tidbits about The Pink Opaque. So much is packed into the moment simply through visuals it’s a shame more of movie isn’t like this.
There’s a constant sense that nothing is how it’s remembered which makes a lot of the narrative seemingly unreliable. I Saw the TV Glow unfolds as a confessional, breaking the fourth wall as it hopscotches through time. Sometimes this helps summarize what’s happened offscreen in the years elapsed, but too often, it amounts to dumping information in the audience’s lap. Still, it begs the question whether the film depicts events as they occurred or as they’re remembered, tinted by time and madness.
I Saw the TV Glow is an interesting example of cinematic stream of consciousness. There is an astonishingly superb scene featuring Owen walking down a high school hallway. Words and images appear on screen like doodles in a notebook. All at once the movie coherently conveys how alone Owen is at school, while simultaneously feeding intriguing tidbits about The Pink Opaque. So much is packed into the moment simply through visuals it’s a shame more of movie isn’t like this.
Ian Foreman as young Owen. PHOTO Credit: By Spencer Pazer. Courtesy of A24.
For instance, there is a monologue at one point that starts to feel like listening to an audiobook. However, the details delivered may not be reliable, so perhaps it’s best nothing is ever shown. What I Saw the TV Glow chooses to show is often as important as what it doesn’t. Though the narrative can occasionally drag, the visuals are never at fault.
Super saturated 35mm captures an eerie world driven by the dream logic of any David Lynch inspired flick. Meanwhile, fuzzy VHS tapes bring the 1990s back to life through delightfully cheesy clips of The Pink Opaque. Throughout I Saw the TV Glow an original soundtrack featuring tunes from Sloppy Jane, yeule, Bartees Strange, Phoebe Bridgers, King Woman, and Caroline Polachek set a distinct mood. This is a movie with a potent look, sound, and feel that helps drive home the experience. Consider it a multisensory tale of alienation.
What sells that experience best, though, is the emotion at the heart of the story. Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun already showed a marked ability to convey certain feelings with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021). In many ways, I Saw the TV Glow builds on many of the elements that story explored, though here with a bigger budget and cast. After all, thematically, these are essentially the same movie, both building on notions Schoenbrun first touched on in A Self-Induced Hallucination (2018).
Super saturated 35mm captures an eerie world driven by the dream logic of any David Lynch inspired flick. Meanwhile, fuzzy VHS tapes bring the 1990s back to life through delightfully cheesy clips of The Pink Opaque. Throughout I Saw the TV Glow an original soundtrack featuring tunes from Sloppy Jane, yeule, Bartees Strange, Phoebe Bridgers, King Woman, and Caroline Polachek set a distinct mood. This is a movie with a potent look, sound, and feel that helps drive home the experience. Consider it a multisensory tale of alienation.
What sells that experience best, though, is the emotion at the heart of the story. Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun already showed a marked ability to convey certain feelings with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021). In many ways, I Saw the TV Glow builds on many of the elements that story explored, though here with a bigger budget and cast. After all, thematically, these are essentially the same movie, both building on notions Schoenbrun first touched on in A Self-Induced Hallucination (2018).
(L-R) Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman. Photo Credit: By Spencer Pazer. Courtesy of A24.
Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu) provides a heartbreaking display of someone dead inside longing to feel, not to mention connect. Bridgette Ludy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) is tragically eerie as a young person haunted by reality and untouchable escapism. And Fred Durst is in the movie for some reason, though his presence as well as performance is too minimal to really endanger the film’s quality. Frankly, I didn’t even know it was him until hearing Jane Schoenbrun talk about him at a Q&A after the film.
Thematically, I Saw the TV Glow is a tale of transgender identity and self-realization. The movie’s multitude of themes and interpretations certainly orbit and come back to that main point, but I Saw the TV Glow is largely about the fictions individuals and societies develop, some of which we never outgrow, in order to “insulate ourselves from reality, to live lives dependent on fictions.” The reasons for which are existential dread, various forms of angst, social expectations, loneliness, isolation, and a profound embarrassment about what we’ve allowed our consciousness to be shackled to.
Thematically, I Saw the TV Glow is a tale of transgender identity and self-realization. The movie’s multitude of themes and interpretations certainly orbit and come back to that main point, but I Saw the TV Glow is largely about the fictions individuals and societies develop, some of which we never outgrow, in order to “insulate ourselves from reality, to live lives dependent on fictions.” The reasons for which are existential dread, various forms of angst, social expectations, loneliness, isolation, and a profound embarrassment about what we’ve allowed our consciousness to be shackled to.
Justice Smith. Photo Credit: By Spencer Pazer. Courtesy of A24
Every few years some fresh filmmaker contemporizes the existential dilemma for audiences. It may not feel fresh to some folks, depending on their personal experiences and level of cynicism; there is a point, after all, when angst driven dramas no matter how well done aren’t stimulating to those who’ve lived through decades of similar cinema (books, music, etc.). However, there is something very vital about these new incarnations of old themes, especially when they inject relatively recent perspectives. I Saw the TV Glow is easy to dismiss as yet another tale of suburban ennui, but that misses the way it showcases pop culture as a modern opiate, and more significantly, how it shares the emotional side of gender dysphoria.
I have a hard time classifying this film as horror. It isn’t frightening so much as tragic and depressing. Make no mistake, I Saw the TV Glow is an engaging, eerie drama for those willing to take this journey. The trek may be pointedly transgender, but it ably conveys complex emotions many can relate to. Sometimes it does so by outright stating feelings but that may be to ensure audiences get the point: life itself is a nightmare. Likely to join the ranks of Donnie Darko, this is a future cult classic.
I have a hard time classifying this film as horror. It isn’t frightening so much as tragic and depressing. Make no mistake, I Saw the TV Glow is an engaging, eerie drama for those willing to take this journey. The trek may be pointedly transgender, but it ably conveys complex emotions many can relate to. Sometimes it does so by outright stating feelings but that may be to ensure audiences get the point: life itself is a nightmare. Likely to join the ranks of Donnie Darko, this is a future cult classic.
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