Indie Beat: Much Ado About Summer Movies (But Not Those Kind!)

Benjamin Umstead, Editor, U.S.; Los Angeles, California (@filmbenjamin)

June 10 2013, 7:00 PM

My summer movie season started two weekends ago when I saw Before Midnight twice in two days, and continued in earnest this past Sunday with Carlos Reygadas beguiling Post Tenebras Lux (which, if you live in LA, and want something challenging, I urge you to see at Cinefamily before it leaves this Thursday). The next movie I really want to see is Man of Steel. Heck, I'm sure most of us really want to see Man of Steel. Now, of course I am going to sound like a broken record in saying this, but... there's a lot more out there than Man of Steel. Obviously.

So today at Indie Beat, I'd like to highlight five independent films I find readily fascinating and that just may be worth your time and dollars. The selection is a mix of flicks that are making one last lap 'round the festival circuit before getting a release, and a few that will very soon be seeing a limited theatrical release and/or a VOD release in the U.S. Some of these films are rather sweet and gentle, others are bitter and dark. All feel authentic in their various tenors of voice and world and character building. For being authentic to one's vision is as close as we're going to get to being original in this day and age. I think that is actually a rather extraordinary and lovely thing, and also probably a conversation to have another day.

For those of you that live outside the U.S. or are not near one of the fests mentioned, please let us know in the comments some of the alternative choices that you are excited to catch in your neck of the woods.

Exit Elena

Nathan Silver’s second feature is a dark comedy that teeters on the fine line between the personal and professional. Kia Davis as Elena, a newly trained live-in nursing aide, brings a weighted and tempered curiosity and all too comical (and thus very human) reluctance to the proceedings. Cindy Silver as Elena’s employer just wants to be her friend, or more dangerously so, a surrogate mother. Silver’s film (which he co-wrote with Davis) hits particularly close to home for on several fronts, from the personal to the professional, thus proving that, heck, there may be no fine line at all, it’s just all awkwardly mashed together. In the tradition of late Bunuel absurdities and the forthright, often times brutal humanity of John Cassavetes, Exit Elena tackles being young and getting old, being alone and getting desperate with a sensitivity and care that is impressive -- undoubtedly, one of my favorites this year.

Exit Elena opens at the reRun in Brooklyn, July 12th and also plays Lincoln Center's Indie Night, July 25th

Stranger Things

In the vein of the humanist films of Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Goodbye Solo), Eleanor Burke & Ron Eyal's debut feature chronicles the extraordinary strangeness of being alone, and the far stranger prospect of being together with an often beguiling sense of wonder and melancholy. Recent university graduate Oona (Bridget Collins) returns to her deceased mother’s English seaside house only to find Mani (Adeel Akhtar), a young homeless man, occupying it. Slowly but surely a friendship is conjured between these two lost souls. Burke & Eyal's film soars in its quiet moments of reflection; moments that are often defined and in the presence of ghosts and pasts that hurt not so much much because they were painful, but because they were so beautiful.

Stranger Things releases in the U.S. June 11th on digital platforms such as iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Xbox and more.

Short Term 12

Brie Larson's performance as Grace, a staff member at a short term foster care facility, is as devastating and uplifting as any you're likely to see this year from an actor of her generation. Grace is a fully breathing, beating fighter of a person. She advocates for the children of short term 12 like few around her can, as their story is, in fact, her own. This then is the absolute core of Destin Daniel Cretton film, it's pulsing heart. On that level, Cretton, his cast and crew wildly succeed in creating an authentic experience, for Short Term 12 is that rare film which champions children as they are -- hardships and all. Fair notice also goes to the brooding, complex performance by young Keith Stanfield, who plays a teenager that is about to turn 18 and must leave the only home he's ever truly known.

Short Term 12 plays multiple fests over the summer (check the film's Facebook to see if it's playing near you) before being released in the U.S. on August 23rd via Cinedigm.

Pilgrim Song

A consistent theme of the road trip movie or travelogue -- from Two-Lane Blacktop to any number of Wim Wenders flicks -- is the masculine inability to communicate. Director Martha Stephens, with co-writer Karrie Crouse, taps into that restless current of the male mind with an appreciated non-judgmental wisdom that is as gentle and introspective as a summer afternoon by the creek. What’s so lovely about Pilgrim Song is that it quite cleverly stalls one kind of pilgrimage a quarter of the way through its running time in favor of another, if ultimately similar kind. It takes some adjusting to, sure, but the performances from Timothy Morton and Bryan Marshall (one a melancholic, the other an all-too-eager ball of split nerves) and the friendship they strike up is fascinating to watch unfold. The direct and in-direct ways they’ve harmed the people they love in their lives is the tender and sore core of a film that also showcases the American South in a loving, thankfully unsentimental light.

Pilgrim Song plays London's East End Film Fest June 27th and will be released on DVD and VOD via Brink in October.

Between Us

Director Dan Mirvish and Jon Hortua adapt from Hortua’s own play, which focuses on two couples with a rich history and an even greater ideological divide. Known names Melissa George, Taye Diggs and Julia Stiles all go to impressive lengths but it is David Harbour (a Tony nominated actor who is mostly known on screen for small character roles) that just knocks it completely fucking out of the park. As Joel, the idealistic artist who has gone corporate, Harbour is brutally honest in how broken he has become... and yet the desire to redeem himself, to his friends, is at first palpable and then searing... and, of course, quite messy. A quality, intelligent adult drama.

Between Us opens in LA at the Downtown Independent on June 21st, with further cities to follow.