review: i saw the tv glow

In the Pink: I Saw The TV Glow

As a plum-in-the-middle Gen X-er, the nostalgia-heavy tours of the 1980s that have been so popular in media since the first season of Stranger Things scratch a lot of itches. Fuzzy synth soundtracks, flickering neon and unironic pastel leisure wear take me back to those heady, pre-internet days, when VHS was cutting edge and computer games took twelve minutes to load via unreliable cassette tapes. 

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s new film I Saw the TV Glow dives headlong into this era, channeling the Duffer brothers’ school horror aesthetics without fully committing to being A Horror Movie. This is more a movie about identity, trauma, friendship and, well, vibes. 

Nerdy weirdos Owen (played by Ian Foreman and Justice Smith) and Maddie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) bond over a YA TV show called The Pink Opaque. The show’s protagonists, Isobel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan), telepathically battle demonic forces in the suburbs, in a ‘monster of week’ type format. 

Fandom becomes obsession, and Owen and Maddie project their fears and frustrations onto the show, which is suddenly canceled. Seismic events follow…though I feel like describing what happens won’t help the review, or your experience of the movie. 

Suffice to say that real life, TV-inspired fantasies and dramatic visualizations of escaping society's pressures all merge into a story in which the director doesn’t spoon feed you the details. Owen and Maddie keep returning to The Pink Opaque in different ways, some more literal than others, as their lives take them in jarringly different directions. 

There are hints of David Lynch, Charlie Kaufman, slick 80s and 90s teen dramas (especially the clips of the TV show, of which I wish they’d shown more) and a million tumblr fanfic posts. I loved the production design and the soundtrack, and though I’m not hidebound by needing resolution in a story, I felt like giving the audience just a little bit more to hang their hats on wouldn’t have lessened the message. 

The tableaus of self-hatred and the visceral frustrations of trying to become yourself are well-handled, though, and as an analysis of marginalization and the friendships borne thereof, it’s an engaging, and endlessly atmospheric journey. (PO)

I Saw The TV Glow is playing at the Prytania Canal Place