I Saw the TV Glow

Back in January, sophomore writer-director Jane Schoenbrun kicked things off in striking fashion and earned glowing praise at Sundance with this ’90s time capsule, an unsettling and deeply personal coming-of-age tale tracing the on-and-off relationship between two lonely misfits called Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) who bond over their shared obsession about late-night TV show called The Pink Opaque.

A dreamy, spellbinding cross between Twin Peaks, “Videodrome” and “Donnie Darko” updated for millennials, “I Saw the TV Glow” is very much a thinly-veiled allegory of body dysphoria, and the existential dread and creeping anxiety of being uncomfortable in your own skin.

But Schoenbrun also stirs up deeper truths by examining the way both queer and non-queer people collectively seek refuge in pop cultural artifacts; how fandoms can become so intertwined with our personalities that they define us; and how the content and fictional stories we consume can often feel more real and cuttingly truthful than the outside world.