I Saw the TV Glow

Gareth Higgins on I SAW THE TV GLOW

I Saw the TV Glow is a film of feelings: of being powerless, both outside the frame of “normal” and trapped in other peoples’ projections. It’s an astonishing, exquisitely designed vision set (mostly) among teenagers confronting who they are, what they want, and how a lack of understanding - or even the attempt - from adults can trigger not merely isolation but despair. It also feels like one of the year’s best films, and the kind of horror movie that people who don’t like horror movies might be enriched by. 

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s second film of a proposed trilogy (following 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) is also about the color of friendship. Here, literally, it’s a neon purply-pink; and in the heart it's a connection that blurs the line between unhealthy co-dependency and being more fully seen. I have friendships that make more of me; sometimes they include being mirrored to the point of discomfort. Sometimes someone else knows me better than I know myself; this is best handled with a degree of consciousness usually associated with well-therapized marriages. One thing I’ve learned from the conflict transformation process in and about my northern Irish home, as well as my own life partnership is that it’s never too early to begin taking a relationship seriously enough to talk about it.