My weekend of movies at the Melbourne International Film Festival starts with I Saw The TV Glow on the biggest screen possible: the IMAX. And it turned out that this is a perfect place to view Jane Schoenbrun’s second feature, with incredibly deep 35mm shot images and a melancholy pacing that has you falling into the screen and swimming, searching for answers at times, just like the lead characters.

We’re introduced to Owen as he’s in Grade 7 in High School(Ian Foreman at first, Justice Smith from grade 9 onwards). An early scene in the film shows his intrigue for the TV show ‘The Pink Opaque,’ this draws him to Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who is two years older and a mega-fan of the show. She’s reading an episode guidebook the first time they speak, and Owen, although intrigued by the show, has yet to have a chance to watch it because he can’t stay up past 10 PM. With Maddy’s suggestion, Owen says he’s staying over at a friend’s and sneaks to her house to watch the show for the first time. It’s reminiscent of something like Are You Afraid of The Dark? That young-adult show that’s just scary enough to send nightmares scouring through some kids’ heads for weeks. Maddy isn’t just a fan, though, as it’s obvious the two leads and the ideas expressed in the show are her escape from an abusive household. We never see her parents, but we hear what’s happening, and the subtle hints show tethering violence at the edges of scenes with a door from the basement. She watches her favourite TV, a literal escape from what’s above.

Two years pass following that initial sleepover, and Maddy continues to share tapes of the show, building and sharing her love for The Pink Opaque with Owen, who comments that he couldn’t say more than a couple of words to her for years. Owen, too, appears to fall for the show because of the outcast nature of the leads and the sense of belonging it’s providing him. There is no discussion about the effects in this monster show or the storylines themselves; Owen and Maddy appear to have connected to the show on a spiritual level at a wavelength that the leads in the show have. They are now speaking to each other on their own secret spiritual plane.

Jane Schoenbrun writes and directs here with a nostalgic lens, but not one we’re used to seeing on the big screen. Instead of comic books and TV actors, you may remember from childhood, everything in I Saw The TV Glow was created for this world. The feeling of 90s nostalgia that Schoenbrun can somehow tap into by feeling and tone alone is masterful. Music is a big part of this, but it’s a mix of indie bands not from the time or new songs, even one featuring Phoebe Bridgers that tickle your brain into thinking it’s from three decades ago.

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine are phenomenal in this film, and each character is bound to speak to viewers differently. Smith gives Owen in, as Schoenbrun has described in interviews, a genuinely memorable delivery in the film’s finale and the “egg-cracking” moment for a character who has spent so long feeling lost, and as they describe, like something is wrong inside them.

I had a twenty-minute walk back to my hotel last night following the screening, and I couldn’t stop breaking down the film’s images in my head. Given it was probably propelled by starting the film’s fantastic soundtrack on my phone. There’s an obvious allegory for what’s going on with Owen in the movie, but that’s not to say the film can’t speak to everyone. It’s a film for anyone who’s ever felt like an outcast, questioned their identity, or struggled to find where they fit within their family, friends, and the world around them.

[Dylan attended the screening of I Saw The TV Glow thanks to the Melbourne International Film Festival]