I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow is a confident, original film, birthed and crafted in a way that feels wholly different to anything you’ve seen before – certainly not in mainstream Hollywood cinema.

The ending is the rawest and best part of this ­unconventional movie.

The power of I Saw the TV Glow lies precisely in its ambiguity, which may go deeper than was intended.

Many moments unnerve, and a few may even alienate, but the sum is grandly and potently itself.

With its shapeshifting disquiet, I Saw the TV Glow is too languidly weird, too unmoored from genre conventions to be neatly categorised. But there’s not a frame in Jane Schoenbrun’s suffocating second feature that isn’t drenched in dread and unease.

The mythology, which becomes increasingly disturbing, is meticulous. But the same material proves a rich seam, a tale of roads not taken, a story that will speak to anyone who experienced an awkward pubescence or the jouissance of pop-culture enthusiasms.

If you’re a fan of offbeat cinema, weird storytelling, or simply want to bask in the glow of something both retro and forward-thinking, I Saw the TV Glow is absolutely worth seeking out. It’s messy, yet mesmerizing, but, above all, human.

Every viewing changes what I think this film means.

Schoenbrunn has crafted a deeply personal and somber exploration of identity, albeit one that might take more than a few viewings to fully grasp.

Jane Schoenbrun understands that with this sensation of finally, oh my god finally, feeling seen comes the lurking reckoning with the fact that it’s not real.