[SXSW 2024] I SAW THE TV GLOW -- Some Stars Shine Brighter Than Others

Review by Jonathan Berk

I Saw the TV Glow is the highly anticipated follow-up from director Jane Schoenbrun after 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Schoenbrun’s visual style is on full display in their follow-up using a more traditional camera set-up than the webcam display from World’s Fair. Bright colors highlight the drab suburbs the characters populate, and an element of the story allows Schoenbrun to create what essentially is an old CW TV show. All the pieces didn’t quite come together, but there is a lot to appreciate in their new film. 

Justice Smith plays Owen, who really just wants to watch his favorite TV show, The Pink Opaque. He was introduced to it as a young boy (this version of Owen is played by Ian Foreman) by a girl named Maddy (Bridgette Lundy-Paine), who is just two years older than him. Elements of the supernatural world of the TV show start to blend with his reality, making Owen start to question everything. 

Foreman does a pretty impressive version of Smith in his sequences. Smith has lowered the register of his voice a bit and speaks in a monotone throughout the film. Foreman captures this and makes you wonder if Schoenbrun just de-aged Smith for a moment, almost making the audience question their own reality. ​

Smith has been an actor who walks the line between being very good and very bad in his performances. His choices for this film tend to lean towards the bad. However, it’s hard to tell if that’s just because of how much of a blank slate the character is. Owen does not seem to know who they are in any sense of the word. His whole personality is a show that he isn’t supposed to watch. His dad, apparently played by Fred Durst (making his second cinematic appearance at SXSW 2024), asks him passive-aggressively if that show is for girls. This distance the character feels is embedded in Smith’s performance, but it still doesn’t totally work. 

Lundy-Payne also gives a slightly muted performance with a similar monotone delivery. However, there is much more behind her eyes in the performance and a little more insight into her desire to break free of her home life. Her character, both in the story and the performance, has more interiority. In Maddy, there is a sense of agency that Owen lacks, which could be the reason Lundy-Payne’s performance feels better overall. 
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The real highlight of the film is Schoenbrun’s style. The production design and style have so many cool elements, especially when we see The Pink Opaque. It reminded me of a show called Ghost Writer from PBS, Supernatural, and Power Rangers, to name a few. Those elements of the film are grainy and purposefully cheesy, set in the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio. Schoenbrun uses that ratio to good effect later in the movie in regard to how the narrative plays out. 

There is a lot to appreciate in I Saw The TV Glow. There is a clear allegory at the center of the story, and how the film explores it through the fantasy of the film is compelling. It is hard to be fully connected to the film primarily because of Owen; whether it is the performance or writing of the character is debatable. Still, there is no denying the high-caliber auteur filmmaker Schoenbrun is proving to be. 

I Saw the TV Glow is screening at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, which runs March 8-16 in Austin, TX. 

Rating: 4/5