I Saw the TV Glow: Sundance London Film Review
Jane Schoenbrun‘s I Saw the TV Glow was at the top of my Sundance London watch list and my expectations were very high thanks to all the hype surrounding it. Unfortunately, I struggled to wrap my head around this weird, surreal film.
Set in 1996, the story follows Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), two high school outsiders who bond over their obsession with the supernatural Buffy-style TV show The Pink Opaque. Their lives revolve around the series, in which Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan) fight evil using their psychic connection. It explores what happens to Owen and Maddy after the show gets cancelled after five seasons.
I Saw the TV Glow is unusual and unique. I didn’t really get it or feel like the scenes amounted to a cohesive, satisfying whole. I liked a lot of the ideas, the performances and the visuals but I came away from it feeling so downbeat, although perhaps that’s just because of the bleak ending. This needed an extra 10-15 minutes at the end to resolve Owen’s journey.
Since I saw the film, I have read a lot of interviews and explainers and now understand that it is an allegory for the transgender experience. It feels obvious now I’ve read about it but it was too abstract and ambiguous to make that connection on my first watch. It’s hard to distinguish what’s real or not and Schoenbrun doesn’t lay everything out plainly – you have to think. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw it!
Now I’m informed about the underlying meaning, I have come to appreciate the film more. Even without the transgender lens, I found the third act rather profound and thought-provoking. It gave me existential thoughts like: Is it too late to change the course of your life? Have you lost too much time not living the life you want?
On a lighter note, I could relate to the characters making that TV show their entire personality and the idea of seeing yourself or who you want to be in a character on a series. The scenes of The Pink Opaque are so spot-on paying homage to ’90s TV shows. There are a few nods to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with the typeface, the villains, The Bronze-style club and a brief cameo (which I won’t spoil).
I cannot fault the concept, the visuals or the performances. I had never seen Lundy-Paine in anything and they were so captivating – consider them firmly on my radar. Meanwhile, Smith’s melancholic performance in the third act just blew my mind; I had never seen such heartbreaking despair from him.
There were a lot of moments I enjoyed in I Saw the TV Glow but it didn’t fully work for me as a whole.
Seen at Sundance London. In cinemas from Friday 26th July