I Saw the TV Glow ★★★★

On the internet, our personalities sometimes seem to be long lists of likes and dislikes – people can be defined by the media they choose to consume. Growing up in a boring suburb where the only interesting events seem to happen on TV causes popular media to build an identity for you. Watching TV from an impressionable age, certain figures in the shows and movies we absorb become relatable role models, and we all inevitably adopt facets of their characters into our own lives, if only for short periods of time. I Saw the TV Glow is a film about this relatable quality of film and TV. Marketed on the depth of contributors to its original soundtrack, which features basically every hot alternative artist of the late 2010s/early 2020s, I Saw the TV Glow transcends its trailer’s promise of cool indie vibes to deliver one of the most existential theater-going experiences so far this decade. 

I Saw the TV Glow follows two kids, Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), over the course of their lifelong relationship, beginning with Owen in the seventh grade and Maddy in ninth. They bond over the fictional late-night TV series called Pink Opaque through a series of awkward encounters. When they first meet, Maddy is a superfan devotee while Owen has only heard of the show through TV ads, but yearns to be allowed to stay up late enough to watch when it premieres each weekend at 10:30pm. As Maddy begins to leave video tapes of each airing for Owen, both characters allow the show to transform their lives and become their ultimate mode of escape from unfortunate (and mundane) home environments. Once Maddy disappears under mysterious circumstances, the film follows Owen into his adult life where he begins to question the role the show plays in his life and his perception of reality.

Given this premise, it should go without saying that I Saw the TV Glow is a midnight movie. The cheeky world of Pink Opaque adds hilariously cheap and dated vignettes to a film already packed with sensation. Pink Opaque is a monster-of-the-week ‘90s TV series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, featuring a homoerotic friendship between two girls who are introduced as “each others’ imaginary friends.” The girls share a telepathic connection and battle monsters dispatched by the evil Mr. Melancholy- a villainous moon-man with a face like Georges Méliès in A Trip to the Moon. The intricate mythology of Pink Opaque draws Maddy and Owen to it, and each other, to the point that it consumes their identities. In one of their nervous interactions, Maddy, a lesbian, asks Owen about his romantic preference, to which he responds “I don’t know, I like TV shows.” When this mode of escape becomes the focal point of each of their lives, real life feels like an escape from TV, and it becomes hard to separate the real from the fake.

Descriptive categorizations like “surrealist” are thrown around too often for movies in this vein, but should be reserved for works like I Saw the TV Glow, which leans fully into the psychic un-reality of its film world. Further, it seems even more cliche to say that a surrealist movie is Lynchian, but I Saw the TV Glow unabashedly evokes shows like Twin Peaks through its high school setting, cosmic ideas, and misfit protagonists. Not dissimilar to cult film classics like Fight Club, I Saw the TV Glow presents a puzzle, abiding by a half-asleep dream logic that gives off a mystical allure. The closest reference I would attempt to draw is to the work of Gregg Araki and Mysterious Skin in particular. The film explores escapism, LGBT identities, and societal outcasts like Araki’s work, tailored to an audience raised by late-night TV and the depths of the internet.

Like the world and aesthetics of Pink Opaque hinted at throughout, I Saw the TV Glow is shot with a hypnotic and vibrant color palette that is easy on the eyes (like night mode on a cellphone). Viewing the film is akin to falling asleep to music, and having the songs create the images of your dreams. The story itself seems to unfold in a dream, with many time jumps and warm emotions. Characters move between scenes without concern for the logistics of getting from one place to another. For instance, early in the movie, Owen lies to his parents about having a sleepover with one of his friends but secretly goes to watch Pink Opaque with Maddy. When morning comes, it is never mentioned how Owen got home. Scenes unfold like episodes, with Owen giving a voice-over narration to his own life story, as though watching it on a screen. And so the film wistfully progresses, dreams turn into nightmares, and Owen begins to feel the world around him grow dull. The TV world feels more real than reality, and he and Maddy love the show more than life at times. There is an element of forced reflection demanded from the viewer; I felt challenged by the film as I struggled to recall my own childhood memories, and felt pushed to relate to the characters on screen just as they relate to Pink Opaque. The effect merges the perspectives of viewer and media: Death to Videodrome, Long Live the New Flesh.

I Saw the TV Glow seems chemically engineered to attract a younger generation of consumers who grew up watching reruns and binging Twin Peaks and Buffy. Some might find the aesthetics more derivative than homage, or the constant soundtrack too forceful and overstimulating. The shoegaze-y mystery soaks the screen from the first minute. Viewers who don’t buy in early on will likely be perplexed by it, as they would by watching all the forgotten 1990s cult genre oddities that inspired it. Schoenbrun’s film writes a new nostalgia for something that doesn’t exist, unlocking feelings only felt when unconscious and instantly forgotten when awake. The end result is not emulation – it is both self-reflexive about the nature of consuming media and critical of the role it shapes in the development and creation of one’s own identity and friendships. In effect, I Saw the TV Glow conveys how it feels to rewatch your favorite childhood TV show for the first time all over again.