I Saw the TV Glow

A deeply sad, heartfelt, surrealist film that is very likely to be the most unique American film released in 2024, and even more likely to be misunderstood by at least 75% of its viewers. On the surface, it's one of the most locked-in mid-90's nostalgia pieces I've ingested, but beneath that it's one of the most complex coming-of-age films I can think of.

To me, the movie was an expression of the kids who grew up in dysfunctional families in the 90's (the TV generation), those who were drawn to dark media due to that (which was extremely prevalent in the late 80's up through the mid 90's), and in turn, those who ended up with a far deeper connection with those dark fantasy worlds than they had with most other humans, and reality as a whole. When it's time to grow up, things get rough...I can relate, because I was 100% one of those kids during that exact era, so this one hit a lot of buttons that made a lot of sense for me.

There are some impressively unique horror/monster effects in this film, that are equal parts comical and terrifying, simultaneously, which feels like yet another element that is heavily loyal to the era it is inspired by. This, along with many other elements, allow this movie to differentiate itself pretty boldly from everything else coming out right now. Common horror fans will likely just be confused by this film, which tends to be the case with most psychological horror films that actually offer anything with emotional purpose, but it offers plenty of cerebral scares and lots of melancholic gloom.

Leads Brigette Lundy-Paine and Justice Smith do an immense job of keeping things deathly serious and dreamlike, Smith almost feeling like he fittingly "can't handle being human" a lot of the time. There are several sequences where their performances bring the movie to a full Lynchian realm - of course this is also due to visionary director Jane Schoenbrun's skilled directing. Speaking of that, I just realized that the segment that feels most like a nod to Lynch in a multitude of ways is the one that features bands performing live at a strange club, much like the Road House in the last season of Twin Peaks. Kris Esfandiari of King Woman makes an especially strong appearance here. It certainly doesn't hurt that they put together a very tasteful soundtrack that feels very reminiscent of the classic movie soundtracks of the 90's. It's fitting that the movie and soundtrack begin with a Broken Social Scene cover, because the whole album kind of feels like a full Broken Social Scene album, with similar dynamics and vibes throughout.

While it's truly hard to compare this to anything, it feels HIGHLY inspired by ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?, the Canadian kids horror program broadcast in the 90's on Nickelodeon, more than anything, while it's themes remind me only of a couple other movies, Pixar's INSIDE OUT, and the very wild SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. While I cried my eyes out at that Pixar movie, this one is too committed to its surrealism and gloom to induce actual tears, but the overall melancholy remains very heavy and very real throughout.

This is a movie about the weirdos who found solace in media for weirdos. Brilliantly, the movie itself is weird (and sincere) enough to be that exact sort of weird type of media that the new young weirdos may find the same kind of solace in when they watch this as a teenager in reality now. I think that might be the whole point. If it wasn't, then it's awfully masterful accident. That's 2 strikingly unique and effective psychological horror films by Jane Schoenbrun now, 2 for 2...I officially deem thee a visionary force to be reckoned with.

"I Saw the TV Glow" refuses to hand anything over in a simple or didactic way, yet somehow manages to carve out really specific feelings in those who connect with its world-not through direct identification with the plot, but through an intimate resonance with a sensory, emotional, and symbolic experience that only cinema and television can truly express. Jane Schoenbrun builds something here that can't be called a traditional narrative, but also isn't just a purely aesthetic experiment. It's a collage of fragmented memories, symbols of a boiling inner world, and impressions of a self that, suffocated by the everyday, finds a kind of misshapen, mystical escape through television. At its core, it's a dark, warped coming-of-age story-one where the characters never quite grow up. Or maybe they do grow, but never emerge from the thick fog of an unspoken identity.

The movie kicks off with a surprisingly grounded premise for something so ethereal: Owen (played by Ian Foreman/Justice Smith), a shy kid from the '90s, meets Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), an outsider teen who introduces him to "The Pink Opaque," a fictional TV show that feels like a mix of "Goosebumps" and "Donnie Darko"-but with VHS vibes, robotic acting, and villains that seem like they were ripped from a nightmare taped over too many times. What first seems like a nostalgic tribute to an analog era of formative media ends up being a twisted mirror reflecting way deeper stuff-like the kind of emotional bond you build with fiction when you're isolated, displaced, or completely adrift in your own identity. There's something deeply melancholic about the almost religious attachment Owen develops to this cheap TV show. It's not about what the show is, but what it represents: a parallel world where maybe he could exist as he really is-or as he never will be.

Casting Justice Smith as the older version of Owen-with no attempt to smooth over the age gap, even though he clearly looks like a grown man playing a late teen-only reinforces the disconnect between physical time and emotional time. It's a bold choice that leans into its artificiality instead of hiding it, because that dissonance is the point: the feeling of watching your own life from a distance, stuck in an aesthetic that refuses to grow up, as if time froze emotionally the moment something couldn't be said, done, or lived. The film's visuals dive headfirst into this non-place aesthetic: neon lights, heavy shadows, overlapping images, and a dissonant soundtrack create a world where reality and fiction blur together-both for Owen, and for us.

Narratively, the movie teases the structure of a psychological horror but then completely abandons any attempt to guide the viewer through a clear line. There are abrupt cuts, time gaps, vanishing characters, absurd details (like Owen's job at a rec center where his only task is to restock plastic balls in a ball pit like it's life-or-death), and a dreamlike logic that feels more like a trance than a conventional story. But logic isn't the point-feeling is. And what "I Saw the TV Glow" makes you feel is a kind of unnamed grief, a constant emptiness, a life lived by proxy. Owen doesn't know how to say what he feels, but maybe "The Pink Opaque" says it for him. When he answers Maddy's question about his sexuality with "I think I like TV shows," it hits like a quiet confession-that he can only access truth through the filter of fiction. In this world, TV isn't escapism-it's survival.

The queer/trans symbolism is clear but never spelled out. That's part of the film's power: it doesn't label what's in crisis-body, gender, identity, voice. There's a constant discomfort that shows up in both the silences and the awkward dialogue, in alienating framing, in faces that never quite relax. The climax-or maybe anti-climax-where lights rise up from the floor and Owen breaks down visually and emotionally, could've easily come off as too much or overly derivative, but instead it carries a symbolic weight that's hard to shake off: it's the body breaking under the strain of a silenced identity, the mind imploding as it tries to reconcile the real with the ideal, the TV turned all the way up with no one left to hear it.

Yeah, the film sometimes slips into a bit of style-over-substance-like the live musical performances that feel more like nostalgic fetish than something rooted in the themes, or some references that seem pasted on more for aesthetic than narrative need-but Schoenbrun makes up for it with rare emotional honesty and a cohesive, immersive atmosphere. "I Saw the TV Glow" isn't an easy watch, and it's not always conventionally engaging, but its refusal to explain itself is exactly what makes it feel so raw and haunting. It doesn't want to be a manifesto, or a neat little allegory. It wants to be a blurry, grainy, warped reflection of a teenagerhood that never ended, of an identity that never had space, of a trauma only fiction dared to name.

It's hard to say whether "I Saw the TV Glow" liked you-or if you liked it. What's more likely is that it just watched you, quietly, like a TV left on late at night, glowing faintly, playing indecipherable sounds while you tried to fall asleep. And then suddenly, something in it understood you-or reminded you of something you've always known, but never had the courage to watch.

I was thoroughly looking forward to this film but alas. The style, the cinematography and the subject matter are all well-executed and important. However, there is little to no nuisance. Any subtlety is not subtle and any message is overpowered by sub-par acting and loud, screeching, pretension.

Mysterious Skin (2006) is a film that's similar but done exceptionally better. While the subject matter is far from metaphoric, it's execution is brilliant. I Saw The TV Glow seems like a proof of concept with a powerful core message that had the glaring plot gaps filled with flashing visuals and nostalgia-bait.

This should've been a Tisch short.

Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun made a highly atmospheric little film a couple of years ago called ' We're All Going To The Worlds Fair' on a shoestring budget but the film left an inedible impression on me that I included it on my ten best of the year.

The follow up continues the same microscopic view of adolescence, loneliness and social exclusion that still retains the same wonderful wintry neon feel as the previous film. See also the classic 'It Follows' and ' Rivers Edge'-these all perfectly capture the inner feelings of the characters; bored teenagers in middle small town America caught in a mystery.

It is talky and slow and I get if some will be put off. I didn't take to the characters breaking the 'fourth wall' and start speaking directly to the camera; it felt like the audience had to be spoon fed exactly what the character is feeling.

The acting is excellent from Justice Smith and Brigette Lunday-Paine and young Ian Foreman as the young Owen. Bringing a vulnerable, isolated look on the faces. Is there a hint of abuse here?

I felt like I did in the 90s with 'Twin Peaks' where I wanted to dive straight into the TV set and be in the dark and magical small US town (there are lots of 'Lynchian' references here, not just the photography and sound but the musical interlude in the small bar) Like the similar 'Beau is Afraid' (ageing) this is a smart, extremely well done expressionist horror that I may not want to see again in a hurry but will stay in my mind for a long time.

No judgment. Definitely not a traditional "horror" film, but scary none the less. I was a freshman girl in 1996. This is what it felt like.... Fighting to get to the next season of our lives. Fighting to be understood and to understand ourselves. We were in such a hurry to grow up we didn't fully appreciate our youth. Some of us didn't make it. I did and I wonder which outcome is better. We die quickly or we die slowly. This film made me feel very seen and also scared for the next generations. Some things are better and some are way worse. If we do it or not our teenage selves die... it's all about if we become something better. The question is "What is better?"