Direction: Jane Schoenbrun
Country: USA
Like in her previous feature, We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021), director Jane Schoenbrun blurs the line between reality and fantasy in I Saw the TV Glow, a depressing psychedelic trip filled with mind-inducing eeriness and ambiguity.
The narrative follows Owen (Justice Smith), a 7th-grade teenager living in the suburbs, who becomes addicted to an obscure TV show called The Pink Opaque. His life gets less empty when he bumps into Maddy Wilson (Brigette Lundy-Paine), another obsessed fan who admits the show feels more real than real life. Suddenly, they realize they have become players in a dangerous game. Everything changes when Maddy leaves without a trace, only to return eight years later with a confused memory and a different notion of time.
I Saw the TV Glow is aesthetically curious, but its disjointed ideas don’t coalesce into a satisfying whole. Schoenbrun can't avoid force-feeding us metaphors during this infinite fever dream, opting for vague contrivances rather than providing real substance. The underlying tension is constantly present but never packs a wallop. The vision is too narrow for that, transforming this experimental gimmick into a lumbering, misguided mess.
The film, co-produced by Emma Stone, aims for the bizarre but ends up more mind-numbing and emotionally deserted than clever. Paranoia and melancholy swallow aimless phosphorescent kids… is that all you’ve got to offer, Ms. Schoenbrun?
