Illustration by Michael DiMilo
The Road to Nowhere: Film Review of I Saw the TV Glow
★★★☆☆
By Geoff Carter
Films about teen angst have been with us forever and have taken on as many iterations as there are film genres. There are vampire flicks like the Twilight series, psychological studies like Ladybird, thrillers like Elephant, and horror films like They Follow, all of which address—in one way or another—the vagaries and problems of adolescence. Of course, adolescence is by definition problematic—an intense period of social (mal)adjustment, self-realization (or self-loathing), and budding sexuality.
One of the latest—and spookiest—iterations of this type of film is I Saw the TV Glow, a tale of two friends caught in a world they don’t belong trying to find meaning and solace in a fantasy world of a YA television show “The Pink Opaque”. Eerily reminiscent of the Slenderman assault case, Videodrome, They Follow, and Donnie Darko, I Saw the TV Glow tells the stories of Maddy and Owen, two loners who connect over “The Pink Opaque”, a late-night television show.
Maddy describes it to Owen as a show about two friends Tara and Isabel, who mysteriously connect on an astral plane and combine forces to combat an evil monster created by their arch-nemesis Mr. Melancholy every week. Mr. Melancholy is embodied in the moon and bears a strange resemblance to the moon in Melies A Trip to the Moon. Maddy is completely absorbed in the show, even reading an episode guide when she first meets Owen. Because Owen is not allowed to stay up past ten, he must sneak out to see the show at Maddy’s place, even though his stepfather tells him it is a “girl’s show”. Maddy is also abused by her stepfather. Owen and Maddy strike up a somewhat hesitant and disjointed friendship.
Two years later, Maddy tells Owen she is leaving and tells him he must come along. Owen deliberately gets himself grounded. Maddy mysteriously disappears. Owen’s mom dies, but he continues to live with his stepdad while working at a theater. Maddy reappears suddenly, telling Owen to watch the final episode of the show in which Tara and Isabel have been imprisoned in a pocket universe. Owen watches the episode but freaks out, smashing his head through the TV screen.
Maddy later explains she has lived inside the show for the past eight years but felt as if she were asleep. She relates to Own in excruciating detail how she paid a man to bury her alive and that she woke up inside “The Pink Opaque” as Tara. She tells Owen to do the same. Owen’s stepfather dies and he continues to live in his nightmarish claustrophobic existence.
I Saw the Light is part of a film trilogy, starting with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and will conclude with another upcoming project. Jane Schoenbrun, who wrote and directed the film, has stated that Light is an allegory for the process of transgender self-identification, specifically the egg-crack, the revelatory moment when one realizes they are not living in their correct gender identity. Drawing from their own experience transitioning, Schoenbrun creates a universe for her characters that glows with the soft pastels and colorful patterns reflecting the cocoon of childhood but stands in stark contrast to the agonizing loneliness and awkwardness of Owen and Maddy. Watching him trying to eke out a sentence is excruciating. Maddy seems to be a little more socially adept, but her isolation is no less difficult. This universe has little or nothing to do with the adult world. We never see Maddy’s stepdad and only catch glimpses of Owen’s. His mother is much more visible and much more—not surprisingly—sympathetic to him. The film is gripping but does bog down in parts.
The plot of the film is almost entirely internalized in the characters. We watch as Owen is presented with opportunities to break out and fight his own identity, but he is paralyzed with fear and self-loathing. He refuses to search for his true identity, and as a result, faces the self-imposed and permanent claustrophobia that his life has become.
The strength of the film is not in the narrative itself but in its pacing. Nothing seems to happen quickly. There are seemingly vast and uncomfortable gulfs of silence. Actions and reactions seem as if they are mired in molasses. As in They Follow, another psychological thriller focused on teens, there is an air of unrequited expectancy. The characters wait. And wait. And wait. No one in the film is comfortable, nor can they be. They are unfulfilled, unrealized, and chronically—and desperately—unhappy. The horror here is not what will the monster do to the protagonists, but what they might do to themselves, or what they cannot do for themselves.
I Saw the TV Glow is a psychological horror film, a twisted fantasy, a bildungsroman, and an unconsummated quest for self-realization. It is not an easy watch, but it is an illuminating insight into the hearts and minds of a part of our society that is afraid to admit they exist on the fringes and so thus–as long as they remain there–will never be able to fight for recognition and acceptance.
Owen and Maddy are lost and forgotten because they cannot—except for their beloved television show—find any hope of acknowledgment. Or love. Not even from themselves.