I Saw the TV Glow review – an instant queer classic

The first shot of I Saw The TV Glow is quite the open­ing sal­vo. The cam­era creeps along a sub­ur­ban street just after dusk, pass­ing over tan­gled veiny chalk art, the world cov­ered in a blue so deep it seems to spill off the screen. The image pre­cedes a film no less vibrant or eerie; its brash, attrac­tive col­or palette pulls you under, and only when you’re ful­ly sub­merged does it start to feel like you’re drown­ing. Direc­tor Jane Schoen­brun, whose debut film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was shot almost entire­ly through web­cams, announces them­self as a vital new cin­e­mat­ic talent.

In their sopho­more film, Schoen­brun focus­es on two out­cast teens, shel­tered Owen and anti­so­cial Mad­dy, who bond over The Pink Opaque, a Buffy and The Secret World of Alex Mack-inspired fan­ta­sy tele­vi­sion series. On The Pink Opaque, the two spunky leads use their tele­path­ic con­nec­tion to fight sur­pris­ing­ly grue­some mon­sters – a dynam­ic which unset­tles and entrances the pair. What we see of The Pink Opaque is remark­ably com­pelling for a 90s children’s show, and Schoen­brun takes pains to avoid judg­men­tal­ly depict­ing it as cheesy or inept, mak­ing it easy to see why our leads become so fix­at­ed on its mysteries.

“Some­times The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life, you know?” says Mad­dy, who pat­terns her queer pre­sen­ta­tion after one of the show’s pro­tag­o­nists. The show becomes a neu­tral space where the two can grow close to one anoth­er while sti­fling the uncom­fort­able, painful facts of their sub­ur­ban lives. I Saw The TV Glow spends most of its first half in a daze of nos­tal­gia for the queer 90s, affec­tion­ate towards the peri­od in a way that’s nev­er saccharine.

As the film goes on, though, its dis­parate hor­ror ele­ments coa­lesce into a gut-wrench­ing por­trait of anx­i­ety and repres­sion. Sur­re­al agents of ter­ror sur­round Owen: Fred Durst is ter­ri­fy­ing in his brief appear­ances as Owen’s father, his stony silence and fleshy face recall­ing a Lon Chaney mon­ster, while cult come­di­an Con­ner O’Malley chan­nels his off-putting brand of humour into the famil­iar malev­o­lent ener­gy of a bul­ly­ing cowork­er. The world around Owen seems increas­ing­ly hos­tile, and the film’s bright, deep col­ors begin to feel like they’re taunt­ing him. Even scenes from The Pink Opaque go from a kid-friend­ly Are You Afraid of the Dark? style of hor­ror to some­thing gen­uine­ly night­mare-induc­ing. I Saw The TV Glow creeps up on you, hold­ing your focus so intent­ly you hard­ly notice when it begins to fray at the margins.

To dis­cuss the film’s rela­tion­ship to themes of trans­gen­der iden­ti­ty would be to delve too deeply into spoil­ers; I Saw The TV Glow is a film best expe­ri­enced know­ing as lit­tle as pos­si­ble before­hand, and it is unique­ly struc­tured such that its plot only real­ly begins at the halfway mark. But its bom­bas­tic depic­tion of the emo­tion­al dis­tress which can accom­pa­ny trans­gen­der life is among the most potent in cin­e­ma – per­haps the most so since a film it recalls quite a bit: Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 slash­er Sleep­away Camp. It’s rare that a film attempt­ing to tell a trans sto­ry – whether on pur­pose or acci­den­tal­ly – has any suc­cess. I Saw The TV Glow reach­es even high­er, and assured­ly hits its mark.

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