I Saw the TV Glow

Two teenagers bond over a late-night monster-of-the-week show, and one of them becomes convinced the show is more real than her life. Jane Schoenbrun made a film that works as slow-burn horror and, read one inch differently, as the most exact account of gender dysphoria and delayed transition on screen.

The suburbs glow, the timeline slips, and the final sequence in the party-supply store is genuinely one of the most upsetting things in recent cinema. If it does not land for you it will feel airless; if it does, it will follow you around for weeks. "There is still time."

In late-90s suburbia, a lonely teenager meets a girl at school who introduces him to a mysterious late-night T.V. show — a vision of a supernatural world pulsing beneath their own. As time goes on, however, questions begin to arise about why the show sometimes seems more real than their own lives. In the pale glow of the television, their view of reality begins to crack.

Synopsis and poster via TMDB.