Review: 'I Saw the TV Glow' hits you like a shock to the system

By Peter Travers

Originality is so rare in a multiplex of sequels, prequels, and reboots that "I Saw the TV Glow," now expanding in theaters nationwide, hits you like a shock to the system. How did something this experimental and extraordinary infiltrate a Hollywood that lives in fear of the unknown?

Ever since Jane Schoenbrun's mesmerizing mindbender debuted at January's Sundance Film Festival, audiences and critics haven't been able to shut up about it. But reduced to a quick summary, "I Saw the TV Glow" doesn't seem like all that big a deal.

Here's the typical capsule description: a psychological horror film that follows two troubled young friends whose reality begins to spiral when the TV show they bonded over gets canceled.

Spencer Pazer/A24

Scene from "I Saw the TV Glow."

Really? That's it? Nah. It's just that "Glow" defies easy analysis. If you saw Schoenbrun's first film, 2021's "We're All Going to the World's Fair," about an online game that makes players go cuckoo, you know this gifted transgender writer and director is a born disruptor whose films sneak up and floor you.

So hang on for "I Saw the TV Glow," as the story picks up in 1996 when suburban seventh grader Owen, played by Ian Foreman and later in high school and beyond by Justice Smith, tells ninth-grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) about his obsession with ad teasers for "The Pink Opaque," a TV series much like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," a fan favorite among outsiders.

Maddy, brutalized by her stepfather, makes VHS tapes of "The Pink Opaque" for Owen since his overprotective parents—Danielle Deadwyler (brilliant as the mother of a murdered son in "Till") and rocker Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit—won't let him watch the actual show about two teen girls, Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan), who unite against a monster of the week.

The monsters are scary, especially those inside, like Owen's horror at the cancer killing his mother. Says Owen: "Sometimes 'The Pink Opaque' feels more real than my own life." It's the light from screens that glows for Owen and Maddy, it's a safer haven than the glare of reality. . Though Maddy identifies as lesbian, Owen feels caught in the middle about gender. Schoenbrun never addresses trans identity directly, preferring to depict the confusion and isolation of queer youth trying to discover how to rebel against suburban conformity where the insidious trick, in the words of Schoenbrun, "is to make us desire our own repression."

Spencer Pazer/A24

Scene from "I Saw the TV Glow."

As Owen grows older, he falls into that stifling trap. The turning point for Owen comes when Maddy disappears, setting fire to her TV set just as their favorite show is canceled, leaving Tara and Isabel buried alive. Owen knows the feeling—he feels buried alive in the burbs.

Schoenbrun has compared the process of coming out as trans as letting go of one self to allow another to emerge. Owen is an adult before we see him actually find the courage to crack himself open to discover his true self inside. Scary? You bet. But exhilarating as well.

No spoilers, except to say that Schoenbrun lines up all the elements— a pitch perfect cast, sublime visuals (Eric Yue), sharp editing (Sofi Marshall) and evocative music (Alex G)—to create a one-of-a-kind movie of constant astonishments. There's not a trace of caution, complacency or hardsell wokeness in its 100 hypnotic and haunting minutes.

The off-handedly revolutionary "I Saw the TV Glow"— Schoenbrun describes it as "angry sex between art and commerce"—isn't always easy to get your head and heart around. Movies that break new ground seldom are. But stick with this one. There's an incendiary daring in it, a willingness to go for broke. That's this game-changing filmmaker's magic. They make us believe.