I Saw the TV Glow - The scoop and digest

Jane Schoenbrun writes and directs the standalone follow up to We're All Going to the World's Fair.

Justice Smith - Owen

Brigette Lundy-Paine - Maddy

Ian Foreman - Young Owen

Helena Howard - Isabel

Lindsey Jordan - Tara

Summary

In 1996, awkward teenagers Owen and Maddy are avid fans of TV series The Pink Opaque, which follows psychics Isabel and Tara battling supernatural monsters sent by big bad Mr. Melancholy, who aims to rule the world by trapping them in the Midnight Realm.

When Maddy disappears the following year, The Pink Opaque is cancelled.

Eight years later, Maddy shows up at a grocery store and takes Owen to a bar, claiming she's been inside The Pink Opaque for almost a decade.

Luna juice

Visually appealing and genuinely absorbing, peculiar psychodrama largely sparkles.

Even though Mr. Melancholy ripping Isabel and Tara's hearts out isn't shown on screen, sequence was still unsettling.

For all the good, the bad (and even ugly) was the final 10 minutes.

After having a breakdown, Owen enters a bathroom and cuts his chest open (exposing a TV screen).  He then apologises to people for his recent behaviour.

As everybody ignores him, I guess he's no longer part of common reality.

Whatever, it didn't land.