I Saw the TV Glow

Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan, Danielle Deadwyler, Fred Durst, Conner O' Malley, Emma Portner, Phoebe Bridgers
Running Time: 100 min.
Rating: PG-13

**The Following Review Contains Plot Spoilers For 'I Saw The TV Glow' **

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

Destined for cult status, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun's horror/sci-fi parable I Saw the TV Glow is a lot of things at once, at least to audiences willing and able to connect with it. Ambitious and beguiling, it's a surrealistic trip that utilizes its modest budget to craft a work of art that feels twice its size. Exploring the most uncomfortable corners of the soul, it's also a strangely moving exploration of loneliness, isolation, the passage of time and our complicated relationship with pop culture.

Centering around a reluctant friendship between two teen misfits, this starts as a strangely muted coming-of-age story until eventually evolving into this creepy, hypnotic tone poem that carries echoes of David Lynch and Donnie Darko. Buoyed by two startling performances, it's been described by Schoenbrun as a trans or queer allegory, but its themes are broad enough that viewers can interpret what they wish. Suffocated and suppressed by their "normal" suburban lives, both characters will take different paths to diverging destinations, their journeys flashing by in what seems like an instant.

It's 1996 when shy, withdrawn seventh grader Owen (Ian Foreman) meets ninth grade outsider Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) on election night and she introduces him to the young adult television series, The Pink Opaque. A bizarre, supernatural cross between The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the show centers around teen girls Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan) who discover a shared psychic connection while fighting monsters each week. 

When Owen sneaks out at night to watch the show at Maddy's house, a strict bedtime curfew set by his overprotective parents Brenda (Danielle Deadwyler) and Frank (Fred Durst) quickly puts an end to that. Flash forward a couple of years and an older Owen (now played by Justice Smith) is getting episode tapes from Maddy as each continue watching to escape their miserable home lives. But when Maddy suddenly disappears, only to reemerge almost a decade later, she reveals shocking details about the program that heavily blur the lines between fiction and reality.          

Owen and Maddy have an almost immediate pull as characters the moment we meet them, but the two year age gap between a ninth grade girl and seventh grade boy may as well be an eternity for anyone this age. That's why the casting of two different actors as Owen is such a brilliant detail, with Foreman and Smith's anguished takes functioning as mirrored reflections of each other, never leaving the slightest shred of doubt they're one in the same. Smith's lumbering walk, sad eyes and crackling, exasperated voice that sounds as if it pains Owen to even speak. It's only when he meets the dry, cynical Maddy that he opens up a little, finding a connection with someone experiencing similar angst.

That Owen and Maddy's bond is forged through this show will resonate with those who knows how much more a piece of entertainment means when shared with a friend rather than discovered on your own. But besides The Pink Opaque functioning as a comment on our messy attachment with media and nostalgia, Schoenbrun really makes it looks like something straight out of the mid 90's, cheaply produced but with an unmistakable creative flair. The show can be viewed as either terrible or intriguing, which is exactly the point when Owen rewatches it decades later, deflated by the realization of how "cheesy" something he once loved now looks through his older eyes. 

The barrier separating this film from the series within it becomes invisible, and for those scoffing at its horror classification, the show's terrifying, moon faced antagonist, "Mr. Melancholy" and his "luna juice" will settle any doubts. Like any beloved show of the moment, it'll face cancellation, and with that comes Maddy's curiously timed disappearance. It's surprising is just how many years the film manages to span, sweeping us along with Owen as he processes the ramifications of her sudden return. Why she left their small town isn't a mystery. The real question involves what happened to her since. 

Alex G's mesmerizing score and Eric K. Yue's purplish, neon drenched cinematography only bolster an indescribable third act that heads into trippy Twin Peaks territory, complete with a nightclub scene (featuring Phoebe Bridgers and Sloppy Jane) where we learn how the show infiltrated their psyches in ways only one can decipher or admit to. For Maddy, it's her salvation, and while the script contains some meta observations about TV finales and reboots, the true challenge is in getting Owen to summon the strength to also break through. Lundy-Paine, who already impressed in both Neflix's Atypical and Bill & Ted Face the Music provides Maddy with just the right mix of cynicism and vulnerability, especially while somehow conveying the impossible to her friend.

Owen has more than one opportunity to cross over, but can't quite find a way out of his own personal hell. The last scene is agonizing to watch, as his screams of anguish go unheard and the art he consumed decades earlier proves a more accurate reflection of his true self than what passes as reality. All that's left are memories built on a lie, and the declaration that "It's Not Too Late." But is it? Only in the beautifully tragic final minutes do we fully understand the frustrating irony behind that phrase, even if our challenge wrestling with the film's many ideas has seemingly just begun.