That lucky crowd was the one at Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” confirmation that the work they did on “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” two years ago was no fluke. This feels like the beginning of an influential and important career, the work of an artist who is completely fearless in expressing their identity through their art. And what really elevates “I Saw the TV Glow,” other than Schoenbrun’s stunning visual and aural confidence, is the blend of the specific and the universal. This is a defiantly strange film, and yet it reaches into something relatable at the same time about identity, anxiety, culture, and connection. It’s surreal in a way that feels true, reminding me of David Lynch’s work in how it operates on an emotional and almost instinctual level instead of a literal one.
At its base, “I Saw the TV Glow” is about two young people who become obsessed with a TV show called “The Pink Opaque.” Sort of a hybrid of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (complete with the same font) and Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?,” “The Pink Opaque” is one of those shows that comes on last in a young adult block on TV, pushing the boundaries of genre a bit before the network goes to black and white reruns. The fictional show in the film stars the great Helena Howard as half of a pair of young women who have a sort of psychic connection, sometimes fighting off a monster of the week and sometimes fleeing the shows “big bad,” Mr. Melancholy. It’s the kind of show that young people get obsessed with, young people like Owen (a vulnerable Justice Smith) and Maddy (a fantastic Brigette Lundy-Paine).
A young Owen (Ian Foreman) in seventh grade sees a commercial for “The Pink Opaque” and becomes captivated by it, but his distant father (Fred Durst … yes, that one) and loving mother (Danielle Deadwyler) won’t let him stay up late enough to watch it. When he sees Maddy reading an episode guide to the show, he forms a bond with her, sneaking out to watch an episode one night, and obsessively watching the VHS tapes of the show that she leaves for him to watch.
That’s the skeleton onto which Schoenbrun tells a story of obsession and finding yourself through something and someone else. Schoenbrun made clear in the intro that the film was being written as they were finding their own queer identity, and it’s easy to see the theme of feeling out of place in your body and in the world throughout “I Saw the TV Glow.” It’s not just about repressed identity as much as those moments when the world shifts into something new. It can be as simple as a TV show that changes your worldview or as complex as gender identity. But what feels special about “I Saw the TV Glow” is how many layers it has to unpack. Two people could have very different, valid readings of what this film is “about.”
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