I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun’s surrealist horror meanders and ultimately frustrates.
Glow worms: Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine
Image courtesy of A24
The soft glow of a TV screen in the late-night darkness can be comforting, but it can also be ominous. Obsessing over television and other forms of escapism is often perfectly healthy, but when someone chooses to immerse themselves particularly deeply into fictional worlds, it’s worth questioning why. Does a love for escapism belie a need to escape?
This is certainly the case for I Saw the TV Glow’s main character Owen (Justice Smith) who we follow as he becomes obsessed with a show called The Pink Opaque after being turned on to it by the slightly older Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine). When the show is cancelled, their lives begin to change for the weirder and the lines between reality and fiction start to blur. This blurring of reality and fiction is clearly designed as a metaphor for the trans experience: discovering something that becomes more real than your own reality until you’re not sure who you are anymore. At that point, there are two choices: to accept your new identity, or to push it down and ignore it. TV Glow is concerned with the latter, and the film’s horror comes from the subsequent existential dread.
But once the sluggish setup is over, and fiction starts to bleed into reality, the film begins to meander. Director Jane Schoenbrun uses more than just ordinary narrative progression and dialogue, showing us extended music performances (by Sloppy Jane and King Woman) and a lengthy monologue delivered directly to camera. The music scenes are supposed to accentuate emotions rather than further the narrative, but the one that might work to this effect is the King Woman song, and it’s used at the wrong moment. As for the aforementioned monologue, Schoenbrun instructed Lundy-Paine to tone her performance down to its most muted and let the words speak for themselves. The result is monotonous and emotionally inert, and it may be a mistake to let words speak for themselves when those words are things like “I wasn’t picking up anything on the psychic plane”.
There are certainly things to praise about the film – the overall trans metaphors come through quite well, and the ending genuinely stuck with me despite Justice Smith’s unconvincing performance. Elsewhere, one minor editing choice that pleased me was when Maddy’s eyes fade away and are replaced by stark red stage spotlights. All in all, however, the pretentious ultimately outweighs the impressive here, and the main feeling I Saw the TV Glow left me with was one of frustration.
JONAS BUTLER
Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan, Conner O'Malley, Emma Portner, Ian Foreman, Fred Durst, Danielle Deadwyler.
Dir Jane Schoenbrun, Pro Sam Intili, Sarah Winshall, Emma Stone, Dave McCary and Ali Herting, Screenplay Jane Schoenbrun, Ph Eric K. Yue, Pro Des Brandon Tonner-Connolly, Ed Sofi Marshall, Music Alex G, Costumes Rachel Dainer-Best, Sound Tim Korn.
Fruit Tree/Smudge Films/Hypnic Jerk/Access Entertainment-A24/Park Circus Limited.
100 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 17 May 2024. UK Rel: 26 July 2024. Cert. 15.
