As a follow up to their directorial feature, the viral creepypasta inspired “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” writer/director Jane Schoenbrun has delivered a pink neon tinted vision of a nostalgic 90s time, draped in dreary imagery and a dayglo sort of soundtrack to craft a film unlike anything out this year or in many years before. An exploration of identity and repression that can only come from a singular, uncompromised voice, this is “I Saw the TV Glow.” This is a film that should be experienced with as few details as possible.
Set in 1998 and the years that follow, the film follows teenager Owen, played by Justice Smith (“Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”) and Ian Foreman () as a younger version, as he befriends older teen Maddy, played by Brigette Lundy-Paine (“Atypical,” “Bill and Ted Face the Music”), and the pair bond over their shared obsession with a young adult “monster of the week” mystery show called “The Pink Opaque.” However, as life gets drearier and they get older, the pair begin to question if it was actually a fictional show after all.
Despite the clear and distinct style and voice, this is the sort of smaller scale drama tale that entirely revolves around the strength of its actors. Luckily, not only do Lundy-Paine and Smith have phenomenal chemistry together, but their individual performances are stellar as well. Smith maintains a delicate balance between meek and pathetic, making us feel for his character without becoming a punching bag and still maintaining credibility as our narrator. Meanwhile Lundy-Paine completely runs away with the film. Maddy herself is not just a constantly engrossing and fascinating character, but Lundy-Paine's layered performance elevates her to an obsessive degree. It’s a haunting display of loneliness and fear, but not without a deep caring for Owen and fearlessness rooted at her center.
Owen and Maddy’s adventure is draped with a color palette that manages to feature some of the darkest blues, pinks, and whites you’ve ever seen. Each scene feels like a living diorama of the 90s and early 2000s, dipped into a vat of viscous vaporwave vibes. There’s something so painfully and deeply real about their adventure, and yet at times it feels like everyone around them is a mannequin, purposefully set up to adhere to their story. This isn’t a bug though, rather a feature of the overarching narrative.
Set to a fantastic score from Alex G (“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair”) and an eclectic soundtrack featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Sloppy Jane, and King Woman, “TV Glow” features not just a visual vibe all its own, but also an auditory and editing vibe that matches perfectly. Some moments that initially come across as mistakes or glitches quickly reveal themselves to be further enhancements to the dreamlike aesthetics of this tale, and they’re staged and layered overtop of Eric K. Yue’s (“The Giant (209),” “A Thousand and One”) cinematography to great effect.
What takes this tale to the next level is its intense levels of subtextual storytelling and layering. As things become more complicated and mysterious for Maddy and Owen, the visual motifs and hints begin to crop up more and more. Are these just coincidences? Subtle hints at a potential reality shift? Red herrings put in for us, the audience, to purposefully read further into? These details feed further into a tale of self-repression and inner self, crafting an exquisite portrait of a pair of protagonists taking two remarkably different approaches to the same emotion.
This is the sort of film where every single aspect of the filmmaking process is working together to evoke the same emotion and create the same tone. For example, while its visual effects budget is not nearly the same as a blockbuster or similar film, it uses that lower budgeted look to evoke a sinister, unsettling feeling with its effects moments. It all collides together into a singular work that unsettles but still manages to evoke a possible moment of hope, communicated perfectly by a single image of chalk writing on a street, “There is still time.”
It says a lot that, even amongst other specific and unique works, “I Saw the TV Glow” works on a different level of even those due to the deeply emotional subtext working underneath a perfect micro chasm of 90s vaporwave feelings and visuals, commanded by two exceptional lead performances. Schoenbrun has crafted a singular vision that will be discussed and dissected and beloved for years and years to come to degrees possibly as obsessive as its two main characters. 5/5
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