The bold, daring “I Saw the TV Glow” explores fandom, identity and the way we remember

Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) introduces Owen (Justice Smith) to “The Pink Opaque,” a horror-esque cable series in “I Saw the TV Glow.”
Thanks to A24

“I Saw the TV Glow” – 3 stars

The school gym. The stands of the football field. The movie theater, the fast food drive-thru, the quiet, leaf-covered street where your friend lives.

Something about the detail and clarity with which Jane Schoenbrun evokes the ’90s suburbs in “I Saw the TV Glow” makes you remember growing up there — even if you didn’t.

But that’s the problem with memory, isn’t it? It can be distorting.

And that’s what Schoenbrun, an exciting filmmaker in only their second project, makes clear in this story that focuses on those anxious school years when you try to fit in, or only realize that you don’t – especially and more intensely , if you’re queer or trans and don’t quite know it yet.

Schoenbrun has spoken about their own suburban childhoods in the 1990s, feeling different but not fully understanding why until they began their own transition years later. The backstory of Schoenbrun’s own experience isn’t essential to appreciating their film, but it certainly adds poignancy to some scenes – especially one in which the main character, Owen (Justice Smith, fantastic), describes the confusion he feels about himself. There is something wrong with him, he knows, even though his parents don’t want to say it. He feels like someone has dug out his insides.

Likewise, you don’t have to be a fan of ’90s cable TV — especially “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which Schoenbrun loved — to understand the major role fandom plays in the emotional lives of Owen and his new friend Maddy (Brigette). Lundy Paine). If you were a big fan of a show that aired before the streaming age, you’ll instinctively understand how that intense connection can lead to distorted memories: Watch it today and what felt scary is now silly. What seemed like art is a cheap mess.

But we remember what we remember for a reason, Schoenbrun says, in a film that succeeds most clearly on an emotional level, if the plot ultimately feels a bit muddled. (But is that deliberate, another meditation on the selectiveness of memory, or a reflection of the muddled way we think in youth? Yes, in all likelihood.)

We first meet high school-aged Owen (a wonderfully empathetic Ian Foreman plays this younger version) on Election Day 1996. Owen’s mother (Danielle Deadwyler) takes him to the voting booth at the high school. But Owen is interested in something else: the older student Maddy, who exudes a cool gothic style, reading a book of episodes of ‘The Pink Opaque’, a horror-esque series on cable. Owen has seen the ads, but the show airs after his bedtime: on Saturday nights at 10:30, just before the Young Adult Network switches to reruns.

Maddy is in group 9; the two year gap feels enormous. But she would like to bond during the show. The following Saturday, Owen asks his mother if he can sleep over at a male friend’s house, but makes his way to Maddy’s basement. Thus begins a deep connection with the show, which follows two girls who meet at sleepaway camp and learn that they connect on an ancient psychic plane. They unite to destroy a new monster every week, monsters ruled by an evil Man in the Moon named Mr. Melancholy.

Mister Melancholy wants to trap Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan, aka the musician Snail Mail) in the Midnight Realm, and that one fact leads to some comic relief: “This isn’t the Midnight Realm,” Owen exclaims . at one point to Maddy. “It’s just the suburbs!”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Two years pass and Maddy leaves Owen VHS tapes of “The Pink Opaque” in the school’s darkroom, annotated with observations. But he still couldn’t see it at 10:30 am on Saturday. His strict father asks, “Isn’t that a show for girls?” His parents reject his request to stay up late. (By the way, Dad is played by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst; also in a cameo is Phoebe Bridgers.)

Owen (Justice Smith) finds solace in the show “The Pink Opaque” in “I Saw the TV Glow.”
Thanks to A24

So Owen (Smith, in a beautiful and nuanced performance) plans another stealth slumber party. They watch together and Maddy cries. She then tells Owen that she is leaving town. He is unsure whether to join her. Years pass and eventually “The Pink Opaque” is canceled.

Remember when you could touch and collect tapes, albums and stuff like that? Somehow that seemed more of a concrete relationship to the culture we consume than its equivalent today. Nowadays you no longer have to worry about misremembering a program: you can always find it somewhere. But you don’t feel like you ‘own’ it in the same way you ‘own’ a song on Spotify.

Schoenbrun acknowledges this when they show an adult Owen later rewatching his beloved show on streaming and realizing, with sadness and even shame, that nothing is as it seemed.

Owen’s father (Fred Durst) won’t let him stay up late to watch his favorite show in “I Saw the TV Glow.”
Thanks to A24

But the meaning of the show has a much deeper meaning. We all love a good escape story into another world – it’s something we cherish from childhood. But here, in the suburbs of the 1990s, the TV screen becomes not only a gateway to an escapist world, but also, on another level, to its opposite: a new reality that is not at all fake, a world in which Owen can be himself. He may not really know it yet.

Schoenbrun made their first film, ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’, with, in their own words, ’12 people in the forest.’ Now their film is being produced by Emma Stone and released by boutique indie studio A24. It’s a whole different world for them – and an essential new cinematic voice for us all to follow.

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An A24 edition. Rated PG-13 for violent content, some sexual material, thematic elements and teen smoking. 100 minutes