The spirit of independent cinema is alive and well, but it’s also grown frustratingly familiar. Go to Sundance or SXSW, and you’ll find a bevy of meandering movies built on the existential despair of middle-aged white men, quotidian characters who are often despondent, divorced, or both. Their unrest is the crux of the movie.
But while brother directors Joshua and Ben Safdie (“Heaven Knows What”) find themselves trafficking this territory (their films are economical, efficient), the art itself stands out. Their narrative interests are singular; the stories they’re interested in relaying to the world are not