My job as a writer about film, food and television has never been about pretending I'm some elevated being whose taste is so refined and on point that anything I like should be appreciated by the most people possible. Instead, I try to share what kind of human being I am with you so then you can either go, "Oh, this other human person and I like some of the same stuff. I bet I'll like this new thing, too," or "Man, this Jared guy is the absolute worst. If he likes this new thing I need to avoid it at all costs." Knowing me helps you know whether our tastes will align.
One of the coolest things about writing is that I still have people come up to me weekly wanting to either thank me for a recommendation I made in the paper or to completely berate me for something I loved that they absolutely hated. Because I'm strange, I'm happy either way. Also, because I'm strange: I absolutely loved the new film, "I Saw the TV Glow" and I'm certain around 90% of you will absolutely despise it. Like, it will actively make you angry.
"I Saw the TV Glow" has been one of my most anticipated films of the year ever since it was announced. Director Jane Schoenbrun's previous film, "We're All Going to the World's Fair," has never left my head since I've seen it and is a heartbreakingly real examination of psychological dysphoria through the lens of an online creepypasta. Schoenbrun had their own trans and non-binary egg-crack moment while writing the final draft of the film and you can feel the sense of profound awakening and discovery in almost every frame.
"I Saw the TV Glow" is so deeply strange, beautiful and personal that there are dozens of interpretations to take home, but one that's impossible to misinterpret is the open-hearted plea to trans youth that things will eventually get better once they leave their shitty suburb or escape the cold, unblinking hostility of an ignorant parent.
The film follows young Owen and Maddie, two alienated teens both obsessed with a TV show called "The Pink Opaque," a young adult horror fantasy that's definitely supposed to be a stand-in for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Maddie is two grades ahead of Owen and already deeply connected to "The Pink Opaque," so when Owen comes over to watch his first episode he becomes immediately haunted by the series. While it allows them to get tentatively closer to each other, the show also becomes their entire identity, keeping them socially awkward and adrift in the real world.
I don't want to say more than that about the plot, but the film leans deeply into psychological horror and dark fantasy, while also existing as a metaphor for youthful alienation, closeted gender dysphoria and obsessive fandom (among many other things). That's just one of the amazing things about "I Saw the TV Glow" — you get to take from it whatever you want. If you want a very literal horror fantasy about obsession, mental illness and monsters, then you can enjoy the film for its myriad surface pleasures. If you want allegorical storytelling about trans visibility and gender awakening, then that's here, too. What about a cautionary tale about obsessive fandom and teenage alienation? Jane has got you covered.
The reason I say most of you will hate this is because "I Saw the TV Glow" is such a strange and personal film that most people will just dismiss it as "weird" or "slow." The film isn't prototypically satisfying in the normal Hollywood sense of the word, and is much more interested in curating a vibe that lives inside you like an invasive species than crafting another hero's journey like a million others we've seen before.
Schoenbrun has a visionary eye and their style is so analog and sumptuously lo-fi that even when the story holds you at an emotional distance, the aesthetic feels like something pulled from a dream you had in eighth grade while falling asleep on the floor of a friend's house as things too scary to watch at your own house played on the television. "I Saw the TV Glow" gains its power from that subconscious connection to the liminal spaces of our nostalgia we sometimes get from a smell or a song or a memory unearthed apropos of nothing. Its specificity is personal and universal. You might hate it.
