I Saw the TV Glow: Existential horror haunts and lingers long after the end

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rob Ryan

(May contain Spoilers)

"I Saw the TV Glow" opens in a very ethereal but murky way before we land on our protagonist, Owen, (Justice Smith) who narrates through flashback a time he can no longer recapture. It begins in 1996, a quiet, emotionally numb and very awkward Owen (Ian Foreman) becomes drawn to a commercial advertising a young adult TV show named "The Pink Opaque" The premise of the show follows a duo of girls (Helena Howard and Lindsey Jordan) who share a psychic connection, driven by a ghost tattoo on the back of their necks and fight monsters of the week inflicted by the big bad named "Mr Melancholy" who looks like the Moon from Georges Méliès "A Trip to the Moon" Owen's obsession with the show is shared by Maddy (Bridgette Lundy-Paine) who he meets as she's reading the episode guide of the show in the school hall.

"It looks like the best show ever!" He says, "It Is" responds Maddy. Owen then presides to lie to his parents (Danielle Deadwyler and Fred Durst) saying he's staying at an old friends house but is actually spending Saturday nights catching 10:30 broadcasts of "The Pink Opaque" something for their remaining years in school is the only thing keeping them going in their otherwise debilitating and depressing existence.

Years later, Owen grows older, his mother dies of Cancer, Maddy runs away from town due to her abusive stepfather and the false rumours of her sexually assaulting a student. To add insult to injury, "The Pink Opaque" gets cancelled after 5 seasons. Strange things start to take place straight after and to say anymore would spoil the film. All I will say that their love for this show becomes much more significant with regards to themselves and the world they are living in and the mundane and stale life they lead. I was lucky to not watch any trailers or look at any more of the plot descriptions beyond what I have told you. I would highly recommend you go watch the film before you read any further as this is one of those movies that is best viewed knowing as little as possible, All I'll say to those who have yet to view the movie, the directions this movie goes, provide a surprising amount of ambition in not only in it's subtext but also in it's world building despite a mostly minimalist setting, I hope that's a good enough endorsement.

What stood out to me about this movie in it's initial set up was not only it's throughly accurate depiction low budget 90s shows in the style of Goosebumps but how it captures that safe haven a series can give you when the real world is so cruel and cold. Where the only thing that motivates you during the day is eventually, sitting down in your own space and being wrapped around a world which if it did exist, you could belong there. It also the helps that the show itself looks so exciting, fun and full of feeling and wonder as opposed to the sterile suburban life, why would you want to live in that world, when you could have a sense of community and you get to fight monsters every week? Sign me up!! But then that begs the question, what if maybe this isn't the life Owen or Maddy are supposed to lead? maybe a better life is possible and its there in this show.

The analysis of the movie that have come out since Sundance from both people who have seen the film, from it's cast and from writer / director Jane Schoenbrun make no secret that the film is ultimately a metaphor for the trans experience, where you feel something is wrong, you can't place your finger on it until one day you realise that you have been living a lie. The most powerful and ultimate gut punch of this movie is how it takes that very theme and manages to make's it universal to a lot of people's lived experiences, because Owen learns that he's not who he thought he was, but in order to take that next step to rediscover his identity, he has to face demons that he is too afraid to face, there's too much comfort in the conformity and instead of facing up to it, he lets the years go by in an instant, he works at two dead end jobs, he slowly withers away and his true life is becoming less and less possible to embrace, this is what a lot of us do whether we realise it or not and it's painful.

I was confused by the movies categorisation as a horror but in the final 20 minutes of the film it slowly made more and more sense, a shocking moment happens where Owen finally cracks after years of living a lie finally come up to him and I've never been more disturbed by a scene in a long time. (and yes I've seen Longlegs) director Schoenbrun's previous movie "Where All Going to the Worlds Fair" showed promise but lacked any kind of payoff despite it's constant buildup, that movie was also about a found community through a piece of media that may or may not transcend (no pun intended) everything, here they fully commit to their eccentric and ambitious ideas and has created a movie that is always keeping you guessing what reality truly is.

I can understand why some people may be frustrated by this movie or be put off by it, this is not about defeating a big bad like the show within the movie, this doesn't have any easy answers to the questions raised and I imagine this movie would be a little too tough to take as the movie is almost nihilistic in the brutal ways our protagonist chooses to repress himself regardless what he's suppressing is real or not.

This is also not a perfect movie, the movie does rely a little too much on telling information rather than showing and there is a music video segment featuring Phoebe Bridgers that is pointless, (I like Phoebe Bridgers but there's a time and a place) but for a movie that left me feeling cold, unsatisfied and unsure at what I had seen (I realise that's maybe the point) This movie refuses to leave my mind even long after viewing it to the point I had to write this review down, if there's anything I'm taking away from this, is to give my self as much introspection as possible, and ask myself if I'm really happy, is this really what I want and what can I do differently until my life is all gone much like the characters and the world they inhabit, maybe that's something we can all come together over, even if we forget all about it sometimes.