I Saw the TV Glow: Movie Review

Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Fred Durst, Danielle Deadwyler
Director: Jane Schoenbrun

I Saw The TV Glow will be familiar to many who coveted fantasy TV shows in the 90s when major television networks chose to bury them in their schedules or move them around willy-nilly.

Centring on Justice Smith's Owen in 1998 mid-America, it's the story of a lost boy who finds his passion from a friend Maddy (Lundy-Paine) recommending him a fantasy TV show called The Pink Opaque. As this pop-culture obsession grows, Owen's connection with his friend is strengthened, but it's brutally severed when Maddy goes missing.

I Saw The TV Glow is an almost solipsistic film that lives in woozier aesthetics and revels in its opaque nature. Centring on Owen's quest to discover himself - from teenage dreams to sexual connections and identity quests, Schoenbrun's movie is deliberately vague in parts and frustratingly so at times.

Smith is excellent throughout though, imbuing his Owen with a sense of disassociation as he tries to find his place in everything. Alienation is threaded throughout - whether it's his connection with his mother, his friendship with Maddy or his obsession with The Pink Opaque fed to him by Maddy early on, Owen is not quite 100% on board with it all.

But I Saw The TV Glow won't be for everyone - despite a sly nod to Buffy / Angel in the most subtle of ways, Schoenbrun's movie is too obtuse for a wider audience connection. Perhaps there's an irony that a film about a cult obsession may well be destined for such a future itself.

The slow-burn pacing pushes audiences to the edge, and while there's a subtext about trans-identity, I Saw The TV Glow isn't horror in the traditional sense, despite being pushed so. It's a curious experience, and one worth watching - but perhaps for not everyone, this TV may not glow as brightly as was intended.

This film is playing as part of the 2024 Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival. For more details, visit nziff.co.nz