Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” is a beautiful, sad film that retreats further into itself throughout its runtime rather than exploding in catharsis, offering a potentially confounding experience to audiences expecting a conventional teen drama or horror film. The one moment when the world stops for poor Owen (Justice Smith) does not necessarily need to be interpreted as “real.” Paul Schrader, the legendary filmmaker and screenwriter whose “Taxi Driver” script ended on a similarly ambiguous note, praised Schoenbrun as a generational talent.
“Glow” is steeped in the imagery of ‘90s TV shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “My So-Called Life,” bathed in neon green and pastel purple. TV provides a way for Owen and his friend/possible alter ego Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) to escape their miserable lives at home, and as the film wears on, the boundaries between reality and the screen begin to blur. It’s easy to assume Schoenbrun is making a statement about technology’s stranglehold on modern life, but the director sees media as a place of refuge, where kids can form an identity for themselves before they’re ready to present it to the “real” world.
Owen is played by Ian Foreman for much of the film’s first half, aging rather abruptly into the softer-featured, sad-eyed Smith. This is one of the most passive heroes in recent cinema, his voice rarely broaching a hesitant croak. Maddy drops into his life like an angel and disappears ju.