{Overlook Film Festival} I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

This beautiful, heartbreaking, frustrating at times, rock star of a movie was not for me. I Saw the TV Glow is a queer film. Jane Schoenbrun‘s newest feature celebrates and mourns what our LGBTQ teenagers have had to endure as they accept who they really are or continue to hide that identity from the inevitable ridicule they will receive from their peers and families. When I say it was not for me it is not that I didn’t enjoy it. I absolutely did. It looks absolutely beautiful. It it not to say the 90’s nostalgia did not hit every single dopamine receptor in my brain. It absolutely did and I was here for all of it. Mostly what I mean is that normally my opinion rarely matters in any significant way regardless of the weight you put behind the words movie critic. It means even less with this film. I am a forty (something) year old cis white guy. This movie was made for people who can directly relate to the struggles of its characters. So go read some queer critics reception of this movie. Here is one. Only after that come back and read what I have to say.

What is I Saw the TV Glow About

I Saw the TV Glow is the follow up to festival darling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. While World’s Fair offers a haunting portrait of how the internet can make us feel so alone while leaving only unhealthy connections through viral fads and sensations. More than that it was about how alone we all can feel during adolscence. I Saw the TV Glow offers similar discourse but in a far more sleek fashion. Justice Smith plays Owen a 6th grader desperate for a friend. When he meets Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) who offers him a lifeline through their mutual love of a Buffesque show called The Pink Opaque. As they both grow up The Pink Opaque offers a sanctuary from the difficult teenage lives they both lead. Maddy is a lesbian with an abusive father. Owen questions his gender while watching his mom die slowly from cancer leaving him with a father who at best is absent. The Pink Opaque offers a vision of friendship and power that doesn’t exist in the real world. Maddy eventually disappears at roughly the same time that the show goes off the air and through a series of flash forwards we come to question the reality that Owen has chosen for himself.

I Saw the TV Glow is bleak. Like incredibly bleak. Both Smith and Lundy-Paine mute their performances to reflect the general tenor of the film. There is little hope in a world where both characters must continue to apologize for merely existing. It certainly rachets up the emotion of the movie but also makes those performances largely one note. The ending in particular ( I won’t spoil it here) offers us very little in terms of a path forward. It is lonely, and sad and entirely impotent in terms of offering solutions. The film wants us all to feel the visceral attitude of being lost in ones body and in ones life. Its a lot and if I had any major concern with the film it would be that ending of the film which seemed primed to take us in a new direction ended before we ever truly got there.

I Saw The TV Glow Channels Lynch and Refn

Schoenbrun clearly draws some inspiration from David Lynch as the film really hums when it leans into its weird characters and situations. There is a fairytale quality of the film that would play nicely with some of his earlier work like Wild at Heart. It is drenched in neon so fans of Nicolas Winding Refn’s work may notice some similarities as well. While those inspirations often function in an auteur style that can make their work less accessibly Schoenbrun uses these techniques in a playful way that makes not only The Pink Opaque feel like it could have been a real show on the WB back in the day but makes I Saw the TV Glow a movie about being a queer teenager while still giving queer teenagers a means to see themselves in those characters.

It might be a good time to mention that the soundtrack is pretty incredible. From The Weather Station to Phoebe Bridgers the songs and artists bring with them a vibrance and an energy that sometimes the muted performances lack. Long musical interludes of actual singers and songwriters often punctuate dramatic scenes. Famously Schoenbrun talking about their increased budget for this film. Discussing how the additional funds helped them hire their favorite artists to make original work for the film. It is a movie that celebrates the music we turn to when the rest of our lives feel like they are falling apart.

Teens are often treated as fodder for ridicule in popular cinema, especially within the horror genre. When a movie comes along that treats teenagers with respect, dignity, and agency, they deserve praise. I Saw the TV Glow gets that right while highlighting kids who rarely get to tell their story. Even if those stories are bleak we owe it to them to bare witness.

I Saw the TV Glow opens wide in theatres May 3rd.