YMMV / I Saw the TV Glow

• Awesome Music: The film attracted major positive attention for its use of yeule's cover of Broken Social Scene's "Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl", which is used in both its trailer and its opening scene. An electronic cover of a soulful indie rock ballad with a hypnotic melody, the song sets the stage for the story perfectly.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: While the film never makes it explicit, Owen's fixation on the TV show and extreme difficulty communicating with other people, including a notable aversion to making eye contact that several characters remark on, led many viewers to determine that Owen is autistic.
• Nightmare Fuel: Mr. Melancholy, the Big Bad of The Pink Opaque, initially seems like a goofy villain taking the shape and position of the moon, but in the show’s final episode, Mr. Melancholy poisons protagonist Isabel and imprisons her in his realm while taking a creepy humanoid form speaking with a low, unsettling, inhuman tone of voice.
• Spiritual Successor: Being based around the hazy memories of an old kid's show turned dark and possibly supernatural, the film is basically a much more personal and LGBT-themed version of Candle Cove.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: While it's never stated explicitly, much of the film's imagery and subtext seems to strongly point Owen being trans (like director Jane Schoenbrun). Among other things: they often dream of shedding their identity to become a girl, has a major awakening in their adolescence after falling in love with a TV show that their father dismisses as being "for girls", is shown to be much more comfortable around Maddy than around boys, and one of their visits to Maddy's house culminates in them putting on a dress.

---