I Saw the TV Glow
May 24 - June 20, 2024
After taking the indie horror circuit by storm with We're All Going to the World's Fair, Jane Schoenbrun returns with this eerie slice of reality-f**king cinema, as two lonely suburbanites find solace and obsession in a late-night TV show.
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“This is, quite literally, one of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life.”—Kelly McClure, Salon
“An exquisitely surreal piece that defies easy genre categorization.”—Esther Zuckerman, GQ
Eager to give queer people another (and more expensive) nod from the big screen, Jane Schoenbrun responds to their indie success We're All Going to the World's Fair with a one-of-a kind cinematic experience. In this oddly nostalgic, magenta-tinted exploration of queer dread, teenagers Owen (Justice Smith, The American Society of Magical Negroes) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine, Bill & Ted Face the Music) form a bond through shared solace in a horror television show called “The Pink Opaque,” where they give themselves away to fictional characters with a cosmic connection who fight the big and bad Mr. Melancholy. Removing themselves from suburbia’s oppressive familiarity, self-denial descends into musical phantasmagoria. A commissioned soundtrack weaves unapologetic queerness through their loss of selves and establishes a broodingly digitized cinematic language entirely unique to Schoenbrun. Fanatical media consumption—no social interaction required—gives way for community, a currency more relevant than ever in a hyper-online society. But the characters’ journeys reveal the stickiness of shared escapism and how that looks like human connection but turns out to be pretty empty. It’s a vibrating embrace to queer kids who didn’t live their truth early enough and a cautionary tale for everyone who allows electronic spaces to take up physical space. I Saw the TV Glow dares viewers to live their truth, because if they don’t, their personhood may disappear entirely.
—Selena Calacat
- Director: Jane Schoenbrun
- Principal Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard
- Country: USA
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 100 min.
- Producer: Emma Stone, Dave McCary, Ali Herting, Sam Intili, Sarah Winshall
- Screenplay: Jane Schoenbrun
- Cinematographers: Eric Yue
- Editors: Sofi Marshall
- Music: Alex G
- Filmography: We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)
- Language: English
- US Distributor: A24