(3.5 stars)The hazy neon vibes are immaculate and the suburban horrors are existential in “I Saw the TV Glow,” the latest from writer-director Jane Schoenbrun, whose 2022 breakout feature “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” hit a nerve with the extremely online crowd and skyrocketed the rising indie auteur into the queer horror canon.
“World’s Fair” was about an isolated teenager undergoing a bizarre transformation after invoking a virtual creepypasta prompt. In the haunting “TV Glow,” an assured level-up backed by A24, two more lonely adolescents find connection through a screen in a queer/trans allegory that confirms Schoenbrun’s singular voice.
It’s election night 1996 when introverted seventh-grader Owen (first portrayed by Ian Foreman) bonds with older girl Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over “The Pink Opaque,” a tantalizing supernatural YA series that airs after the strict bedtime imposed by his loving mother (Danielle Deadwyler) and distant, intimidating dad (Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst). Soon, Owen’s sneaking off to watch episodes with his new sort-of friend, enraptured by a fictional world not unlike his own, that speaks to awakening inner parts he’s terrified to acknowledge.
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Schoenbrun nails the grainy ’90s charm and late-night SNICK aesthetic that marks the show within the film, a “Buffy”- and “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”-like monster-of-the-week saga in which psychically connected heroines Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan) battle Mr. Melancholy, a moon-faced villain bent on trapping the girls in his prison of infinite sadness. “Sometimes ‘The Pink Opaque’ feels more real than real life,” Maddy confesses, leading Owen further down the rabbit hole.
At first, their shared obsessive fandom is a salve. Unbearably uncomfortable in his own skin, Owen (beautifully played by Justice Smith from teendom into despondent adulthood) shuffles through life, drowning in a suffocating sense of dislocation. In Isabel, he sees a reflection of the true self he longs to embrace, just as Maddy, battling a rocky home life, yearns to channel Tara’s strength. When Maddy mysteriously disappears and the show is canceled after five seasons, Owen retreats into the comforting embrace of nostalgia, bringing the tragic implications of Schoenbrun’s tale into focus.
Shot in saturated hues on 35mm by cinematographer Eric K. Yue, the film’s dreamlike imagery and composer Alex G’s thrumming indie pop soundscape conjure a shadow world that looms over the mundane suburbs. Smith lends a heart-rending soul-sickness to the repressed Owen, whose own fourth-wall-breaking asides reveal him as an unreliable narrator. You ache for him as time flies in a numbing march until Maddy reappears, years later, with a startling revelation.
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Schoenbrun blurs the lines between reality and fantasy with an intoxicating, Lynchian flair. A spooky ice cream truck idles in the dead of night; a flaming television set burns — or is it a portal to another dimension? Even the Goth nightclub on the edge of town (a la “Buffy’s” the Bronze) bears the same name as the venue where headliners play weekly on “The Pink Opaque” — not that Owen notices as Maddy spins a frightening proposition at the bar while Sloppy Jane, Phoebe Bridgers and King Woman perform self-reflexive songs (written for the film) onstage in the background.
Both lead performances land with astonishing power, and Lundy-Paine, as Maddy reborn, delivers a showstopping monologue that nearly pulls the viewer through the proscenium plane. Even at its most despairing, the film never gives up a sense of hope. A cautionary tale against the dangers of dissociative escape and a gently loving rejoinder reaching through its own screen to those who need it, “TV Glow” offers a tender allegory whose ultimate message is echoed in the chalk-drawn words left on the asphalt for Owen to find, eventually: “There is still time.”
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains violent content, some sexual material, thematic elements and teen smoking. 100 minutes.
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