The tradition of film protagonists who pine for prime time glory has whisked away a portly Baltimore heroine with fabulous flair and hair to break bandstand barriers, a Brighton Beach widow to risk addiction en route to game show gains and a failed comedian to pursue his darkest impulses with a sinister smile on a late night broadcast. The isolated adolescent characters played by Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in Jane Shoenbrun’s psychological horror-drama I Saw the TV Glow (B-) dream of escape into a nostalgic supernatural girl power show to fight monsters of the week, but it’s unclear who’s the show-runner and if either is remotely in control of overcoming a series of traumas. Shoenbrun creates a luminous look for this movie, laced with ribbons of lavender haze and mesmerizing low budget creature effects, and a detailed backstory so fully fleshed out, you almost wish the show-within-the-show took center stage. As committed as both leads are to their roles, they bring similar ambivalent energy that doesn’t always fully enliven the pace but offer aching portraits of coming of age in a world of mixed signals. It’s a film full of creative ideas, many more fully rendered than others. A less than satisfactory final act fails to build on some of the most intriguing plot points, but the movie is overall an original with enough intrigue and whimsy to earn this mystery box a recommendation.