{"id":54534,"date":"2026-08-15T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54534"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:37:00","slug":"i-saw-the-tv-glow-2024-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/15\/i-saw-the-tv-glow-2024-2\/","title":{"rendered":"I Saw the TV Glow [2024]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A pair of awkward and lonely suburban teenagers connect over a TV show and perhaps find the changes they need in their lives. A single sentence here can’t properly introduce the haunting, sad, and affecting film of finding connection and the internal fight for one’s true self in Jane Schoenbrun’s second film: 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Greetings programs! Bob here. This month sees the expanding rollout of writer-director Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s highly anticipated Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, with SIFF Theatres<\/a> (Seattle) presenting the film on 35mm for the first week. Kim<\/a> and I are hitting it up for the Saturday show with a group of friends (and a review to come Monday). Thus, I decided to revisit I Saw the TV Glow. On second viewing, at home rather than the packed SIFF<\/a> (2024 Festival) screening, it\u2019s still a highly affecting, incredibly sad film about outsider awareness and the failure to move into something, clinging to what\u2019s the same even as desperately wanting to change. It\u2019s a trans allegory but so much more. But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself. The following review was published after that first viewing. I\u2019ve fixed some things, such as Jack Haven, who plays Maddy, transitioned between TV Glow and Queens of the Dead,<\/a> and is reflected in the current review, but mostly kept it the same. See also: Felix\u2019s review<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I Saw the TV Glow is a haunting film that will remain in the viewer\u2019s mind like an image burned into an old TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2021, writer-director Jane Schoenbrun made a splash with the low-key indie We\u2019re All Are Going the World\u2019s Fair. It was a film of isolation, trying to find those human connections that seem just out of reach, and living in the day-to-day as a blip in the suburban landscape. While the film didn\u2019t completely work for me, I felt it was almost there, and I felt the director\u2019s next work would refine the style and world on display in World\u2019s Fair and truly land.<\/span><\/p>\n

I Saw the TV Glow is that film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like We\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair, I Saw the TV Glow explores isolation among others while trying to find connections with similar-minded people who may be out of sync with the world around them. I Saw the TV Glow is a more cohesive and refined film, continuing and deepening the ideas of We\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair.<\/span>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While I might note it\u2019s more cohesive as a film, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a directly accessible watch; I Saw the TV Glow is a deeply odd film of esoteric ideas, characters, and worldview, and of a raw and intense sadness. It\u2019s a film about trying to find oneself and living in your skin. This can be a long journey, a journey possibly without an end; one with fits and starts, filled with alienation and disconnection. Schoenbrun has stated it\u2019s driven by her own journey to accepting herself as trans and becoming her true self. One can see this undulating under the surface of the film while never directly stated. It\u2019s a testament to the power of filmmaking and screenwriting to have this reading without being told, and any viewer may place their own journey upon the film. I\u2019m a straight, cis, White man (in my 40s to boot), but I\u2019ve been on the outside in so much of my life and draw that to Owen\u2019s story of self-regulated repression.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a hefty dose of David Lynch<\/a>\u2019s dreamscape (nightmarescape?) realities in the DNA of Schoenbrun\u2019s films. Some filmmakers use Lynchian influence as a crutch or ease of \u201cit doesn\u2019t need to make sense!\u201d (so many short films I\u2019ve seen lean on it, or features like\u00a0 I Know Who Killed Me); Schoenbrun uses the style to keep the world at arm\u2019s length and to connect with the protagonists disconnected from the world around them. They deftly blend a Lynchian discordant atmosphere with realized but distant characters to create an affecting film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Justice Smith is perfect as Owen, using his nervous, out-of-sync nature seen in large Hollywood films of Detective Pikachu and two Jurassic World<\/a> films. Dealing with an emotionally abusive father, played by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, and a dying mother, while in high school (continuing the strangeness in that he\u2019s well past the 9th-grade Owen is for a large chunk of the runtime, reflecting a body dismorphia and infantilzation from his parents), he\u2019s emotionally stunted and locked up, unable to grow until he finds that method to do so. He makes a connection with fellow outsider Maddy, powerfully played by Jack Haven of Bill and Ted Face the Music<\/a>, over a television show, the Pink Opaque. She\u2019s also living on the sidelines, a little older and perhaps a little more together than Owen, able to help him along. Just perhaps, as the film avoids the clich\u00e9 of being a \u201cyou-and-me-against-the-world\u201d type. (BTW, for a more direct narrative in that manner, check out Dinner in America, a wonderful film). With the nothing of an empty suburbia around them, they meld to the TV, finding an outlet in media as so many of us weirdos do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Might I rave on the show-within-the-movie for a moment? The fictional Pink Opaque is a show weird adolescents in the 90s like me would flock to. Fitting, as our lead 90s adolescents (most of the film occurs mostly in 1996, 1998, and ~2006) connect to the show. Schoenburn has stated she was mostly directly inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the Buffy font used in the faux credits got a knowing laugh at my showing), but also by The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Pete and Pete was a seminal TV show for me (being born in 1982), also looking at the strange (and possibly dangerous, in a kid way) lying within the suburban landscape (heck, the first line of the theme song is \u201chey smiling strange, living happily deranged). Looking back, it\u2019s very much a Lynch<\/a>-lite, along with other 80s\/90s indie auteurs. An easy entry point for the larger and weirder in film and TV that would continue to suck me in later in life (I was late to Twin Peaks but glad to live there eventually). The first time we see The Pink Opaque within the film, it\u2019s perhaps the most iconic episode of Pete and Pete transformed into the previously mentioned Lynchian hellscape. Even if the rest of the film wasn\u2019t fascinating, I would be in for the loving pastiche of favorite TV shows (moments of Are You Afraid of the Dark as well). How loving to these shows in particular? Amber Benson, Tara from Buffy, has a very notable moment, and it features both Petes as well.\u00a0 The Pink Opaque is a perfect pastiche of its era, and I applaud the stagecraft to skillfully recreate the style. I\u2019d watch it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I may have just spent a lot of words praising The Pink Opaque, but I want to reiterate that the story surrounding the show- of the characters connecting as they do about it is the crux of the film. Even if we never saw the show in question, the film itself would be just as strong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I Saw the TV Glow has been increasingly bandied about in horror circles as it approaches wide release, but if you are horror-averse, don\u2019t be alarmed. The film is not directly scary but charged with a continual dread and unease. It hums with not feeling comfortable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a deeply affecting film.\u00a0 Schoenbrun builds a strong personal narrative surrounded by a fantastic sense of the visual. It has a beautiful look and starkly composed shots, creating lasting impressions. It\u2019s a film that will stick with the viewer, building in the mind after the credits roll as it sinks in over the days. Sidewalk chalk writing of “There Is Still Time” hits hard. Just the mere phrase is nearly enough to cry.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious how audiences will take it. Schoenbrun reinforces beautiful themes and ideas, but as noted with the Lynch connection, doesn\u2019t take the standard narrative path. Not everything is set up and paid off in the ways the general audience would expect; in many ways, the whole is kept at arm\u2019s length. For me, I loved it. I can\u2019t stop thinking about it. I can\u2019t wait to discuss it at length with those on the same wavelength to enjoy the feature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pair of awkward and lonely suburban teenagers connect over a TV show and perhaps find the changes they need in their lives. A single sentence here can’t properly introduce the haunting, sad, and affecting film of finding connection and the internal fight for one’s true self in Jane Schoenbrun’s second film: 2024’s I Saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[302,477],"class_list":["post-54534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-drama","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54538,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54534\/revisions\/54538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}