Now In Expanded Release in Theaters.
I think most of the reason why Jill Schoenbrun’s horror drama has clicked with so many people is that many audiences can relate to the horrors of getting older. The whole idea of getting older means that you bid farewell to what was, and remain on course what what’s ahead. Some of us are stuck in a position where we can’t say goodbye and this has caused many to re-think their whole lives in general. This is essentially the premise for “I Saw the TV Glow” which is a movie that begins primarily like a Creepypasta but takes on a whole other meaning by the time it comes to a twisted close.
Socially inept and struggling teenager, Owen finds an unlikely friend in an angsty outcast at school, Maddy who is obsessed with a supernatural TV show titled “The Pink Opaque.” After meeting for the first time, Maddy convinces Owen to come over to her house that Saturday to watch “The Pink Opaque” at 10:30 p.m., a time long past his curfew at home. Together, in the mysterious environment of Maddy’s dark, carpeted living room, they indulge in the show’s enticing paranormal world and escape the throes of their less-than-stellar reality. Years later, Maddy disappears unexpectedly, and “The Pink Opaque” is canceled.
Director Jill Schoenbrun creates this mesmerizing often dream like land that feels like reality but kind of isn’t. Justice Smith’s Owen walks around in this purple tinted haze that often feels like the mid-way point between adulthood and adolescence. Although he’s stuck in this small dead end town, he’s always looking down one end of his life and facing what is staring him dead in the face. What can only really help him cope is his obsession with the series “Punk Opaque” which director Jill Schoenbrun clearly models after “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Owen is only able to live his true life and be accepted whenever venturing in to the world of the “Pink Opaque.”
But once he’s left its comforts and nurturing, he’s reduced back into the amorphous purple cloud where he’s never quite awake, and time seems to slip by faster than anyone ever notices. Justice Smith’s own unraveling is so similar to Alex Wolff’s in “Hereditary,” where he’s confronted with so many situations beyond his own understanding and can never truly understand what has happened to him, even after it’s happened. Smith’s performance matches the creeping menace of Schoenbrun’s nightmarish hazy film, offering up a complex and truly gut wrenching turn as a protagonist battling with his identity.
He’s ultimately attempting to seize some semblance before time runs out. Director Schoenbrun builds on truly volatile themes and About the innocence of youth, the love and enthusiasm of exploration and how that can tend to die and dull with the passing of age. “I Saw the TV Glow” centers itself so much on the horrors of embracing our own identity, of growing up and how fast it all seems to whizz by before our very eyes. One minute we’re on the precipice of discovering who we really want to be, only to way up years later still stuck in place.
“I Saw the TV Glow” may not be for everyone, but I loved the way it got under my skin and delved in to themes about fandom, identity, and often looming specter of old age.