IT'S HARD TO understand what motivates Owen, in part because he is almost always alone. The lead in I Saw the TV Glow (played by Ian Foreman and later Justice Smith) is near-always inert, save for when it comes to his favorite television show: The Pink Opaque.
When the lonely seventh grader discovers that a disaffected girl two grades older than him, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), also stays up late to watch the monster of the week show, he sneaks out to watch it with her. It is one of the most radical acts he takes.
Set in an anonymous suburb in 1996, the two gather every Friday to watch the show, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks composite about supernaturally empowered teens who defend their suburban county against the evil Mr. Melancholy. Together they fall into the show’s immersive lore to escape their own hardships — an abusive stepfather, a chronically ill mother. As Maddy explains, the show “feels more real than real life.”
That sentiment mirrors director Jane Schoenbrun’s own lived experience as a trans person. In an interview with Bright Wall/Dark Room, they explain that the film was a way to reflect on media as a coping mechanism — a response to the “lack of a real life or a real identity.” Growing up, Schoenbrun continues, “I could put all of my love into fiction, when it felt unsafe to do so in real life.”
Schoenbrun’s homage to fandom fixation channels Lynchian unease through a distinctly trans aesthetic. I say aesthetic because rather than depicting trans characters and their experiences, Schoenbrun animates the anxiety of disembodiment through the plot and setting. The director compiles for Owen an unreality to match their own: nights bathed in synthetic hues; suburban sets dressed ever-so-crooked. The culmination creates a melancholic unease for viewers, what critic Emily St. James dubs a “contact-high gender dysphoria.”
The years slip away from Owen, the undertow of distortion that characterizes his world goes down easier, and the membrane between life and the show deteriorates. And while Maddy hankers to escape the rhythm of life’s indecencies, Owen will need to decide whether he can change before it’s too late.
I Saw the TV Glow explores the horror of a life of inaction, a denial of self that leads not to transformation but destruction. Schoenbrun’s camera forefronts Owen’s psychological isolation. Even during scenes with his co-stars, they rarely share the screen, each confined to their own separate frames. It is an atmosphere uniquely birthed from trans experience, but also one that anyone who has ever felt alone or discarded will recognize.
There is a cost to refusing the call to change. In this film, the rocks cry out, warning that it’s never too late.
Curtis Yee is a reporter and critic living in Washington, D.C. He covers faith, society, and everything in between. Follow him on Twitter @curtisfyee.
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