I SAW THE TV GLOW follows Owen, a teenager who is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show. The TV show, a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own, leads to cracks in Owen’s view of reality. The film was available to stream on FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 on Max and debuted on HBO a night later on SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT.
We want to draw your attention to this unique story available to viewers. The film, written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To The World’s Fair), is a PG-13 psychological horror tale that clocks in at one hour 40 minutes. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival before screening at the Berlin International Film Festival and the South by Southwest Film Festival and became a critics favorite at all of them. The film stars Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, and Helena Howard, with Fred Durst and Danielle Deadwyler.
So, we have Owen and Maddy (Smith and Lundy-Payne) obsessed over a TV show called Opaque Pink that ran for five years. During the show’s run, the youths experienced life’s joys and life’s hardships. Maddy’s hardships cause her to run away and does not return until a decade later. She claims to Owen that she resided within the TV show they loved and they can continue the series by being a part of it together. Seems quirky, doesn’t it? But then again this film received some praise. To help give some clarity, the work is meant to be an allegory to being transgender. The director stated, “It is about something I think a lot of trans people understand… The tension between the space that you exist within, which feels like home, and the simultaneous terror and liberation of understanding that that space might not be able to hold you in your true form.”
To truly understand it takes the effort to watch it, and I have not. But some people have, and we conclude with pulling some of their comments. The Los Angeles Times stated, “[Schoenbrun] makes us go from astonishment to fear and from fascination to confusion, obtaining effects similar to those offered by the films of David Lynch.” The San Francisco Chronicle mentioned that “It’s imaginative media criticism, but there’s more going on in this never-quite-coming-of-age tale: Questions about gender, memory and time lurk behind the film’s alluring shimmer.” But to be fair the Detroit News said, “But as mood and vibe overtake plot and story, the feeling “I Saw the TV Glow” evokes is often stiff and expressionless, even as its visuals are drenched in intoxicating neon blues and greens.
Again, you can’t really wrap your mind fully around it without seeing it. For those so inclined, find I SAW THE TV GLOW curated on Max.
