I Saw the TV Glow

There’s a lot to like about the world-building of I Saw the TV Glow.

Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair) is clearly someone who watched a lot of Are You Afraid of the Dark? growing up, then graduated to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks: The Return, all the while listening to a lot of Smashing Pumpkins.

They combine these interests and who the hell knows how many more influences into an alluring mid/late ’90s suburban setting where awkward, isolated youths Owen (Justice Smith, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine, Bill & Ted Face the Music) bond over a shared affinity for the Saturday night teen horror series, The Pink Opaque.

The painstaking attention to detail necessary to recreate a ’90s TV show proves well worth the effort, and teenage existential crime fighters Isabel (Helena Howard, Madeline’s Madeline) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan aka Snail Mail, making her big-screen debut) never outstay their welcome. The same goes for the handful of freaky, tactile images that Schoenbrun and their team craft for the show, resulting in some truly creepy and jarring moments.

The storytelling outside the TV screen, however, is much more of a slog. Molasses fast in its execution, the narrative is further hampered by cotton-mouthed, monotonous line delivery and excessive shots of Smith staring in slack-jawed wonder/horror at pretty much everything. Howard’s presence is appropriate as the writing occasionally reaches Madeline’s Madeline levels of bullshit, and there’s so much exposition that, at certain points, you’d rather just read on-screen text.

While Schoenbrun nails the sense of community that can build around a pop culture obsession — and that particular corner reserved for cult TV series devotion — there’s a sense that I Saw the TV Glow might not add up much. Is it a trans allegory? An ode to feeling uncomfortable in one’s own skin? Something else?

No clear messages emerge, yet as the film progresses and Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamberelli from Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete and recording artist Phoebe Bridgers make cameos, Schoenbrun seems more interested in creating a relatable, nostalgia-rich world than filling it with much in the way of substance.

Grade: C-plus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at the Fine Arts Theatre.

(Photo: A24)