Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
In late-90s suburbia, a lonely teenager meets a girl at school who introduces him to a mysterious late-night T.V. show — a vision of a supernatural world pulsing beneath their own. As time goes on, however, questions begin to arise about why the show sometimes seems more real than their own lives. In the pale glow of the television, their view of reality begins to crack.
I Saw the TV Glow is a genuinely singular piece of filmmaking — Jane Schoenbrun's vision of late-90s suburban dread and gender dysphoria rendered through surrealist horror is deeply personal and utterly distinctive. The cinematography is a standout: washed-out pinks, television static aesthetics, and dreamlike compositions create an oppressive, hypnotic atmosphere. Novelty is high because the film's conception — using a fictional YA supernatural TV show as a metaphor for repressed trans identity — is a one-of-a-kind conceit executed with real artistic conviction. The plot functions more as mood and metaphor than conventional narrative, which is intentional but limits its accessibility and dramatic momentum. The acting is committed and ethereal — Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine deliver affectless, dissociated performances that serve the film's themes but won't read as virtuosic to all viewers. The ending is deliberately unsatisfying and unresolved, which suits its themes of denial and stasis, but stops short of being a truly devastating payoff that the buildup seems to promise.